When Nick Cave describes as album as “some of the strangest, funniest, rawest, most heart-wrenchingly deranged music I have ever heard…” it makes me really want to hear the album so it was without hesitation that I slammed Noah Taylor & Sloppy Boys’ debut EP Live Free Or Die into my stereo.
As most of you will know Noah Taylor has made a name for himself as an actor (in films such as Tomb Raider, Almost Famous) and sometimes his quirky sense of humour gets to shine through in film roles such as Submarine… and that is the first thing that hits you about this EP, you have to be prepared for the quirkiness of the humour.
Musically, the EP stands-up as well, not surprisingly when you realise that The Sloppy Boys are in fact The Wreckery’s Ed Clayton-Jones and The Mess Hall’s Cec Condon. Yet still, nothing quite prepares you for opening track ‘Live Free Or Die!!!’. It is a wall of noise, imagine a manic Dave Graney… but one thing is for sure I love it.
‘Fuck You’ is crude and rude, although the humour that it intends shines through well and its raw energy that is normally reserved for punk makes it a stunner. The humour again shines through on ‘Scary’, and I dare anyone not to laugh at lines like ‘I’m like O.J. and the glove, I’m squeezing in but can’t get in enough.’ Noah Taylor’s god-daughter, Holiday Sidewinder, also joins him on ‘Scary’ making it smoother and sweeter with some brilliant vocals.
‘Dark And Lovely’ shows that Noah Taylor & The Sloppy Boys don’t have to rely on humor to produce a good rock track, while both ‘Girl’ and ‘Rose’ fall into the smooth rock genre… the latter also getting praise from Nick Cave as one of his favorite tracks of the year.
If you’re looking for something a little different then the Live Free Or Die!!! EP may just be for you.
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