IRRITANT

Schnauser

Crossover Prog

3.82 | 18 ratings

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kev rowland
Special Collaborator
Honorary Reviewer

With a twelve-year history and five full albums to their name, Alan Strawbridge, Duncan Gammon, Holly McIntosh and Jasper Williams are veterans of the music scene, and now they have embarked on the next step of their journey by bringing on board saxophonist Dino Christodoulou, and by signing with those nice chaps at BEM. Vocalist and guitarist Alan Strawbridge says: 'We're all really looking forward with Bad Elephant; enthusiastic and like-minded chaps with great taste and even better facial hair.' This is my first experience of Schnauser, and I am already starting to wonder what the other albums sound like, as this strange hotch-potch of styles is incredibly appealing, even though I'm not sure why.

Trying to describe this is, um, difficult. Okay, so let's get the obvious ones out of the way first ' they're heavily influenced by the Canterbury scene, and I am sure that the addition of the sax has exacerbated this, but there are heaps of musical references taken from the psychedelic scene of the late Sixties. Add to that a power pop sound that has elements of The Mothers of Invention, as well as the beat scene, and a wicked sense of humour then you may be getting close. I think I deserve a prize for picking up on the single melody line from 'Roobarb' which appears on 'Re-Mortgaging The Nest of Hairs' (did I mention humour?).

This is a very British album, there is just no way that any other country could bring together a mess of influences like this and make it into something that is quite special. There is a real 'indie' feel to much of this, and there will be plenty of progheads aghast at this being described as progressive, as they sound nothing like Yes or Genesis. No, they don't, they are Schnauser, and they're great.

kev rowland | 4/5 | 2017-5-24

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