Man At Arms A Waste Of Time And Space

The sticker on the front of this CD says it's "recommended for fans of The Minutemen's 'Paranoid Time', Stephen Hawking's 'A Brief History of Time' and Space Ghost Coast to Coast"...that's a six-minute-long record, a book and a cartoon for stoners. The post-it left by a colleague gives more of a clue as to the sound, saying "noisy twist rock". Having put the CD in my player I'm fairly confident that's as in twisty-turny math rock rather than "let's all do the twist".

It's fun stuff, tight and choppy with cool automaton monotone vocals along with repetitive stop-start guitar twiddling that sometimes brings to mind Don Caballero but the grooves are more driving and less confusing, often with a moody Poison Arrows-ish churn and an interesting mixture of tangy trebly Minutemen-ish guitar tones and some thicker and more heroic ones. They achieve a nice mixture of earthy physicality and robotically repetitive jazziness here that's challenging at times but more often quirky and very listenable.