Vile Imbeciles - Jennifer/Tramp

Backed with 30 minutes of skulduggery, to be called 'Death Jazz'. You can listen to 'Death Jazz' and wonder if, at 30 minutes and four seconds, it might just be one of the longest b-sides in musical history. Or you can see it as yet another uncompromising and instinctive lurch forward by one of Britain's most progressive and free-thinking bands. For while the two A-side tracks here, 'Jennifer' and 'Tramp' (taken from last year's acclaimed Queenie Was A Blonde long player) are evidence of their reining in the scrambled time signatures and crepuscular bass of debut album MA into the rigours of that curious 'song' format more easily understood by lesser mortals, 'Death Jazz' sees Vile Imbeciles giving full and glorious reign to their avant-garde instincts and desire to confound the meagre delineations of genre. Think Tom Waits' experimental leanings coupled to the kind of intelligent, lurid stompings oft found on the Ipecac label, Zappa, barnstormer freakshow funk jazz metal that shrugs and slithers and kicks its way out of categorisation. For on this bold release the Brighton-based quartet (who now consist of vocalist Andy Huxley,bassist James Hair, new drummer Evan Reinhold, and guitarist Caz Rospigliosi), continues to explore their self-defined genre of 'death jazz', a concept that, the title suggests.

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