RETARDOT Hook, Line And Sinker (Watt Noiz)

Loud, shouty stuff from a Middlesborough band with a collective ear attuned in the direction of strange samples and barely controlled weirdness. They play huge Ska-like numbers such as the title track that somehow survive the impending collapse brought about by gargling solos, rifle the likes of Mel & Kim with a pop-culture swerve unheard outside The KLF or "The Adam And Joe Show" and break down mid-tune for a tongue-twister on the subject of the state of Ken Dodd’s father’s canine. (And is that a snatch of dialogue from "Twin Town" I can hear deep inside "The Ways Crime Pays"?) Not my sort of thing, unfortunately, but I’d still happily take three tracks of Retardot (as in ‘depot’ or ‘escargot’, apparently) in preference to any number of hundredweights of Rage Against The Machine copyists.