K Line - Broken Homes

  by Olga Sladeckova

published: 24 / 5 / 2002

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Review

Zac Slack (vocals), James Sherry (drums), both formerly of Done Lying down, Paul Duncan (bass) from Big Ray and Ed Wenn (guitar, vocals) of the Stupids, Bad Dress Sense and again Big Ray have all connected together to make one music ‘line’. Call it K - Line, which is what they themselves decided when they recently got together to form a band. The punk voice of the band was heard by Aston Stephens, who liked them so much that he signed them to his far-famed English punk label Boss Tuneage. K - Line's debut release, ‘In The Red’, a three track EP, came out shortly after that. I recently saw a fascinating gig at the London venue the Garage which featured a line up of the Portugese-Scottish group the Parkinsons, Ikara Colt and 80’s Matchbox B Line Disaster. K Line's sound has something of Ikara, something of the Parkinsons, and something of Matchbox B-Line but, as far as a description of their music is concerned, that is certainly not disastrous. Basically what K-Line do is make quality DIY punk rock. In all honesty, melody is lost here, but the pure punkability that K Line offers instead more than compensates for this. ‘Broken Homes’, the opening track, is certainly not short of drum texture and this is tightly combined with Zac’s shouted and enthusiastic vocals. Half way through the song seems to be considering taking up some melody while Zac sings, “You can call me any time at home” , but then gets pulled back into a raw roughness of guitars and drums. ‘Stay Poor’ and the third and last track ‘Future Primitives’ steady the K Line's professionally amateurish sound. The latter tune gets stuck in your head somehow and bumps your blood, if it is not already hot, up to boiling. The EP has been released in a CD and vinyl version and is very likely to become one of the favourite records in your collection.

Track Listing:-

1 Broken Holmes
2 Stay Poor
3 Future Primatives