Description:	LP on Gringo
	Format:	LP (vinyl)
	Genre(s):	Experimental/Math/Noise Rock
	Label:	Gringo
	Price:	£8.19
	Availability:	Dispatched within 2-5 days (on average).

5
...according to our Brian on 28 March 2008.

Whilst trying desperately to stem a hangover from seeing Bilge Pump (for about the 12th time) last night, I decide the best cure is probably slap their new album on loud. Really fucking loud. The last one wasn't much cop i mutter to myself. It was recorded in a bin for 8 pence and a used kebab I chuckle. Well local legend Richard Formby (who's done the deed on waxings by Cud, Hood & The Telescopes amongst many others) has earned himself a pint from this man's pocket! When I first saw th' Pump years back i gawped, blinked & shook my baldie head and exclaimed WHERE on earth did they get that drummer? HOW does he DO that? They're the tightest, wildest 3 piece free jazz post hardcore juggernaut i've (still) ever seen. Somewhere (very loosely) between Rush, Trans Am, At the Drive In & Morcambe & Wise with an irreverent dose of knowing humour, they snake, contort, bend backwards, spiral into sludgey mayhem then kick you in the face whilst consistently making your body buckle & your feet burn the floor. Or they just freeze you to the spot in shock. You feel like laughing, it's such a delightful funky noise. Folks LOVE them round here. they truly are Leeds best kept secret. That's why 'Rupert The Sky' has made my week (if not year) It's a spirited gallop through some songs they've been barking at people for a few years now from squatted council buildings to plush clubs. They don't care. The noise wins every time. The guitar squalls & growls like an insane wasp in a loudhailer, the bass grumbles like it's having a heated conversation with a mountain and the drums. The drums. Oh...the drums. Honestly, you get the chance to see these boys play, get RIGHT down the front (they won't bite - promise!) and watch Neil Turpin play. He's like John Bonham on acid. The lyrics are just great too, absurdist & conversational and decidedly British. Not bad for a band who've taken the history of US alt rock and thrown it up in a dayglow fountain. I'm hoping this could be an AOTW here at the towers. If not, i implore you all to buy it anyway. Thankyou Gringo (and the aforementioned Mr Formby) for finally representing this superb group adequately. CD/LP

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What their label says...

Bilge Pump have a disturbing ability to be better than any band they play with. Imagine a boiling-over bastard concoction of all the best bits of The Jesus Lizard, Led Zeppelin, The Fall, Blue Cheer, Funkadelic and King Crimson. A thick broth of art-punk fractured progressive noise, condensed into atonal pop songs free of power chords. Nitro-fuelled avant-jazz rhythms create enough structural form amongst the twisted guitar and off-the-cuff witticisms to provide an uncanny ability to incite dancing! It doesn't matter how wired or weird Bilge Pump get; behind the progressive noise there are clear, distinctive, memorable songs: a rare and winning combination! Formed in Leeds during the murky depths of the mid 90s, it didn't take too long for the NME to churn out their now infamous declaration that Bilge Pump are "unlistenable guff"; so far, so good. It took them 7 years to produce their first album, 'Let Me Breathe', released by Gringo in 2002. It has taken another 5 years for their second album to arrive, but in that time they have probably played with, dismayed and blown away all your favourite bands (Lightning Bolt (Brian Chippendale from Lightning Bolt admitted he's a one-trick-drum-pony compared to Bilge’s Neil Turpin), Erase Errata, Part Chimp, Trans Am, The Mars Volta, Hella, Foals, Get Hustle, Les Savy Fav, Enon). They will probably make you want to quit playing music, but you'll get over it. They may not have done an interview in a magazine for you to read. But they probably are the best thing you've ever heard, and if you haven't heard them, they probably are the best thing you've never heard, and if you've never heard them, you probably should, and here's your chance! Brace yourselves, lock up the liquor cabinet, and throw logic out the window, because Bilge Pump is comin' atcha with a hardcore ear-assaulting noisy punk rock free-for-all. Indecipherable shouted vocals -- sort of like David Yow from The Jesus Lizard singing through a sweaty Army vest -- a rambling, almost free-jazz bass line, shrieking guitars, and racing apoplectic drums come together for... cacophony. Fierce! – Epitonic 1 The Rise and Fall of The Alpha Male, 2. A Storm in a Teardrop, 3. Brown Ale for Sister Sarah, 4 Om Nom Savoy, 5. I Am Perfectly Fine, 6. Archaeological Diggin’, 7. The Fuckover, 8. Can I Touch Your Leg, 9. Thank You Very Much, 10. If She Sees My Little Face, 11. Moil .