The new album from Body Double is a pleasant surprise. Well, it's not exactly "pleasant" as much as it's unexpected. The band, led by Candace Lazarou, makes music that references all the best dark alt-rock of a decade or two earlier, while offering up unique iterations of modern post-punk. Milk Fed, the newest release, is sharp and oddly fun.
"The Floating Hand" sounds like Siouxsie, while "Ready to Die" is superbly crunchy and full of the kind of riffs that L7 used to master. Lazarou manages to make this sound fresh, even if so much here feels familiar in some way. The excellent "Prisonous Mind" feels a bit like Nina Hagen or Lydia Lunch, while the surging "Embrace the Bomb" is all but a Banshees number. If this sounds like stuff from the class of 1979, at least Lazarou makes this an energetic release. If more of this had been as unsettling as "Head Axe", I'd have been happier but, as it is, Milk Fed hits at the points of inspiration that informed so much of my listening habits in the Eighties that I have to rave about this release.
Milk Fed is out on Friday via Zum.
More details on Body Double via the band's official Facebook page.
[Photo: Ellis Martin]