ˇForward, Russia!
Give Me A Wall
Dance To The Radio/Mute Records
By Christine Ernest
¡Forward, Russia! wants to be your friend in the worst way.
But Give Me A Wall will beat you up a little while trying
to play with you. Think huge German Shepard attempting to
play with a kitten - - someone is bound to get hurt, but it’s
still fun.
Although not totally inaccessible, ¡Forward, Russia! will not please the
average listener - - at least not unless some extra effort is devoted. On first
glance, the tracklisting is boggling as it reads like the Dewey decimal system
on crack: 13, 12, 15 part 1, 9, 19, 17, 18, 16, 7, 15 part 2, 11. The numbers
actually represent the order the songs were recorded.
Hailing from Leeds, England, ¡Forward, Russia! was formed in 2004 by siblings
Katie and Samuel “Whiskas” Nicholls and former Black Helicopters
members Tom Woodhead and Rob Canning. The quartet formed their own label (Dance
to the Radio) in true DIY spirit to relight the flame of post-punk that originally
died out in the late '70s.
The tracks “Fifteen Part 1” and “Twelve” will pummel
you with force until you're a bloody mess. But tracks like “Nineteen” take
a soothing step back. Frontman Tom Woodhead's falsetto shrieks deviate into temperate
vocals as he delivers a message of befuddled hope: “And now and again
balancing your roles/ I see you get bogged down/ And though you say it's not
good/ Your life still lingers on/ And so now, little gosling/ Don't become a
swan.”
The bottom line is that Give Me A Wall will be tiring to decipher for
some, but the ancillary labor proves to be worth the effort.
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