Bugs
Devolution EP
Despite the plural name, Bugs is one guy using ‘real instruments’ and writing and playing all the stuff on this album-taster himself (as his press release tells me). Well, press release is probably the wrong term for it. CD-accompanying flyer is probably more accurate, but you know what I mean.
Bugs claims to be inspired by the last 50 years of rock music, which seems a pretty tall order to be honest. Should I expect Chuck Berry riffs over Kasabian style beats with Ian Curtis’ disconcerting voice over the top? Well, that’s not a million miles away from ‘Pick Up The Wind’. Actually, it’s not far from all the songs here, being as they are, quite similar. Not slow but not fast – ‘constant’ is probably the most accurately descriptive word for it – these songs don’t particularly seem to go anywhere. They don’t build to crescendos or break down half way through. If you skip to somewhere else in the song it will most likely sound exactly like the part you’ve just been listening to. And that’s just a little disappointing, in my mind.
Obviously, anyone who can write, perform and record all his own songs has talent – I could never do that beyond A level and even then mine were crap covers of Nirvana. It’s just that the structures of the songs are so repetitive that they become virtually unlistenable. This album could be a good springboard to better things if only Bugs could bring some diversity to his music, or somehow give each song its own identity.
Guest article from Heather P.
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