Review: Lazarus And The Plane Crash

Lazarus And The Plane Crash – Horseplay (Antique Beat)
Well, this is a blast. Lazarus And The Plane Crash is Joe Coles, previously of The Guillotines, and Stephen Coates (aka The Clerkenwell Kid) of The Real Tuesday Weld. Together they’ve made a strange record of primal rock ‘n’ roll, dark, dangerous themes and freak show aesthetics. Maybe the boys can explain it all better:

Joe says “There’s lots in these songs about sex, animals and about a wired, ecstatic feeling like a JG Ballard story. Where the pilot of a stolen plane crashes into Shepperton and becomes this pagan demigod fucking everything and teaching the locals how to fly.”

The Kid says “These songs mix garage rock, gypsy jazz, cut and paste sampling, sexual over-excitement, violence and torch song pianos under spontaneous versifying… Usually single takes and a subsequent laborious stitching process were all that were needed.”

We say they’re not far wrong. The shadows of Tom Waits, Django Reinhardt, Turkey Bones and the Wild Dogs and the younger, nastier Nick Cave envelop much of “Horseplay”, but there’s also an elemental aspect to their music which seems to be all their own. Rooted in rockabilly and demented R&B, Screaming Jay Hawkins with a Link Wray beat, they’re lascivious and lewd, and shouldn’t be allowed out during daylight hours. Listen to “King Of The Village Fete” or “Horn For The Whole Damn World” for instant gratification, and “Naked And Nasty” and “Nasty And Naked” to discover who nicked your Birthday Party albums. Primitive and primordial, it sounds like they’re inventing rock ‘n’ roll in One Million Years BC – Raquel Welch’s going to love it.

Incidently, the packaging comes with an incorporated Ouija board that told me to kill the neighbours. You might want to be careful with that.
http://antiquebeat.co.uk/artists/lazarus-plane-crash/
Simon M.