Trumpets of Jericho will no doubt be a name familiar to anyone who’s been keeping an eye on the thriving Cork music scene in the last while. Trumpets of Jericho…say it out loud. There’s a satisfying cadence to those vowels and consonants stumbling into each other. Bill Drummond, upon being told of a new group called Echo and the Bunnymen for the first time wrote of the band’s name “It didn’t have the instant ‘I’m already into this band and I haven’t heard or read anything about them’ feel that The Teardrop Explodes had, but it was in the right area.” I haven’t heard or read anything about Trumpets of Jericho before writing this review, but it’s a moniker that conjures up images of victory against formidable odds; of walls; of war; glorious uproar; a certain famous Monty Python image. And with that, I’m already strangely contented.
Self-proclaimed exponents of ““Expropriated Eructation” – a belief in a considered approach to everyday sonic phenomenology”, the band released this album at the beginning of 2012 with a little help from Cork’s independent Benthos Records, and while I haven’t given it much consideration in the past, I’m glad someone is out there doing it. If sonic phenomenology is responsible for people knocking out records of this calibre maybe it’s time to start taking more of an interest. Post-punk and new wave would be the most immediate touchpads for Song Like An Alum Ut It’s Nor Really, although there’s a skewed folksiness in there. Admittedly, it won’t be for everyone, and there’s no over-produced sheen here – it’s often murky, claustrophobic, dark and repetitive…but all in the best possible sense.
Narci Boy is the brief snippet of grungy folk that leads us into Nothing To Get Up For, whose heavy bassline alongside a prominent bass drum steadily builds up while demented vocals howl and snarl in the background, getting more and more intense before the drummer takes the song home. As with Uh! and its slashed chords and keening vocals this is typical through the record, with the rhythm section heading up the attack, underpinning a distinctive guitar sound. It sounds as if the guitarist has rammed a knitting needle through his amp and recorded it underwater, with the guitar lines vibrating and palpitating restlessly throughout the album. Paddy’s Revolt meanwhile has a loose, expansive feel; the drum rolls clatter, and then hang back to let the vocals and bass carry it on…it’s a good ‘un this.
On Feel Low the band grind out a dirty proto-punk nugget of a riff, Detroit garage style. Chaotic guitars squeal and stalk around each other, hackles raised like fighting alley cats. “I feel low like never before” is repeated endlessly, and not for the first time on the record I’m reminded of Richard Hell as well as other CBGB’s alumni. That wavering guitar is to the fore again with the lilting Easy, over some laid back and louche drum fills, while Pure Love, Like is nothing less than a slab of sleazy glam-rock‘n’roll with a chorus that’s hard to shake out of your mind. Bird-song – of all things – heralds the album’s end, going out in similar style as we came in, with the folked up waltzing lament of Never Leave You Alone.
Pulsaang though is the mid-album peak, a disconcerting and dense Krautrock nightmare. An unsettling sonic growl rises before a hypnotic bass and drum pattern takes the song over, marching it relentlessly forward. Effects weave in and out, over and under this foundation, with the off-kilter guitars scraping away. I imagine the track taking up an entire side of vinyl, everything swirling around and penetrating through that hypnotic looped bassline, but no sooner does the pulsing repetition of the song coil you in than it is abruptly cut off. I was in for the long haul with this one.
Song Like An Alum Ut It’s Nor Really has crept up and staked its claim as my favourite Irish record of the year so far. The distinctive guitar and atmospheric drones that permeate the recordings are a pleasure to entangle yourself in, while the rhythm section have mastered sounding both lethargic and potent all at once, if you can imagine it. Trumpets of Jericho have delivered an album with a certain debauched decadence, and a suitably raconteur lyricist to act as co-conspirator on the journey down the dark road, the Devil to our Daniel Webster…psych-folk? Expropriated Eructation? Sonic phenomenology? Whatever the hell it is, I’m sold.