James P Honey & Joel Simeus - Book of Marion

Don't know a lot about either of these fellas. Nothing at all, in fact. One thing I can say on listening to this is that if your attention has been grabbed by the phrase “curiosity grindcore” in the press release, let me tell you now that this record and grindcore haven't so much as glanced one another in passing. No matter, though. This is still a pretty interesting proposition. Over the course of half an hour we have two side-long tracks. There's a lot of words on the record and a lot of words in the booklet and I haven't been able to figure out if they're the same words or different ones. You certainly get a whole lot of words for your money either way. The music's a little hit-and-miss, with stream-of-consciousness and slightly posh-sounding (or is that how all southerners sound to us up here in darkest Yorkshire?) rant-rapping over minimal electronic beats with an experimental noise bent. At their best there's a kind of Mel Gibson and the Pants feel here but there's times, particularly when the vocals move to the fore, where it's squirmingly white middle class hippie fodder, and they really never hit that perfect mix of flow and party vibes that the aforementioned Pants are so good at. That said, though, it's still an interesting and unique listen with moments of real momentum.