Scrap Dealers - After a Thousand Blows

by Adrian Janes

published: 7 / 3 / 2016

Label: Jaune Orange
Format: CD

Solid if somewhat derivative second album from Belgian group, the Scrap Dealers

Review

As if hammering together a new creation from a personal scrapyard of memories, ‘Walking Alone’ opens this album with an industrial drone, battered Killing Joke drums and a melodious guitar figure like something repossessed from the House of Love. With its backdrop of buzzing guitar and synth, there’s some real power here. But the vocal line is monotonous, and, like several of the other tracks, excessive length allows the power to dissipate to some extent. Les Scraps (as they’re apparently known in their native Belgium) attempt fairly successfully to weld together a degree of pop melodicism with distorted noise. ’Keep My Silence Safe’ begins with a blistering feedback intro that with the entrance of the drums turns into a jaunty pop-rock tune, only to be subverted in turn by some wild guitar overlay. ‘I’ll Never Be Like You’ and ‘That’s What We Call Love’ both feature some impressively limpid guitarwork, with the former’s distinctive riff and crashing percussion effectively fixing it in the memory, although the latter is marred by too much vocal repetition. Paradoxically, although at over ten minutes it’s the longest song, ‘I Lost My Faith’ is the track least in need of editing. Starting with a storm of distorted guitars and drums, it becomes a fog of cymbals and droning fuzz where mournful vocals disconsolately wander, pierced only by intense, luminous guitar notes. The kind of submission to mood that is aspired to elsewhere, here is finally achieved. The Scrap Dealers have acknowledged the influence of bands like Slowdive and Chapterhouse. Add in the echoes of Ride and the House of Love, and it would seem that they’re a band besotted by late ‘80's /early ‘90's British rock, and at times a decided preoccupation with their footwear. But with the acclaimed reissues and actual return of a number of their forebears in recent years, perhaps it is the right climate for a band with such influences to emerge and forge from them something new. ‘After a Thousand Blows’ isn’t quite that, but there’s enough to suggest that if they keep hammering away they may eventually hit upon something great.