Stranger Son Of WB - Einstein's Getaway

- Manchester's Stranger Son of WB deliver an incredible mix of alt-rock and disco-not-disco styles, at one minute dropping the funk and at
others snarling their way through the harshest of sounds. ESG meets The Birthday Party anyone?
- Stranger Son features newWarp Records signing Lonelady on guitar.
- Championed by the likes of Mark Riley and bands such as Part Chimp, this is for fans of James White & The Blacks/The Contortions, The
Fall, ESG, Liquid Liquid and Suicide.

Info:
"OY, You! YOU in the DICK-EAD HAT! FUCKIN' turn around and LISTEN TO ME NOW!!" - Gareth Smith (3rd SSOWB gig)
It's not a façade, not an act, its just Gareth. Anyone who witnessed the break-up of his previous band TVH3, knows that despite his warm and
welcoming personality, Gareth Smith is not a man who suffers fools gladly; it began approximately two minutes into the first song of the set - they were
clearly having 'problems' operating their 303 - within a matter of seconds the performance had been transformed into a three-way fist fight, the band
using their instruments with the very firm intent of sending all other performers straight to the infirmary. This was not rock 'n' roll. This was…art?
Maybe this goes some way towards explaining why the only real member of Stranger Son of WB is Gareth; with what seems to be a process of
continual band line-up change, either through choice or personality clashes, there's no doubt that this is Gareth Smith's band.

To date, Stranger Son of WB has been through about ten different line ups, each time the band's shifting sound being held together by the underlying
style of Gareth's songwriting coupled with his erratic vocal delivery. Following on from a couple of highly acclaimed singles on the Kum Ba Yah and
Marquis Cha Cha labels, ('Snakes' and 'Hot BananaWave', respectively), and a Marc Riley session, Smith locked himself away in his Chorlton flat,
detaching himself from the immediate surroundings of a scene of 'young man nu-folkie flat-cap wearing Nathan Barley-type' chumpery, and battered
out the scratchy, 4-track demos of the songs that would eventually become 'Einstein's Getaway'.
Personnel-wise, Gareth was thinking of yet another change of line up. By 'thinking', we mean the rest of the band had already upped and left. But
undeterred and certainly not a man to dick around, within a week he had assembled the newWB's and after just three brief rehearsals, they were ready
to go into the studio. With an emphasis on nailing a 'vibe', over tidiness, the results speak for themselves. Take the album's opening title track for
example with its spazzy, Mondays-esque 'it's grim up North' funk groove, Gareth's dysfunctional vocal separating it from any obvious 'Madchester'
dubiousness. Then comes the lean disco-not-disco vibes of 'Engine' - jeez, how tight are that band? Just when you think you have the measure of
them, they drop 'Crawl' - a visceral monster of a track, brutal and gigantic in proportion, recalling the terrifying vibes of The Birthday Party's 'The Friend
Catcher'. Elsewhere, 'Mog's Pill' carries a rather disturbing narrative about Wayleigh, a man '…much bothered by death. He had convinced himself,
that he could see the colour of his bones'.
'Einstein's Getaway' is the sound of a Manchester band - but this is not some limp pastiche of the North West's previous musical glories, polished-up
to widen its appeal. This is a raw burst of primal energy, with grooves as catchy as hell.

Track listing: 1) Einstein's Getaway 2) Engine 3) Crawl 4) Gangster Gangster 5) Mog's Pill 6) Hardy's Farm 7) P.A.Y.

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