First exciting new band discovery of the year! Not that Guttersnipe (based in Leeds, and not to be confused with several considerably more trad punk bands of the same name) will necessarily need much of an introduction to adventurous listeners in the Northern half of the UK, having garnered a certain amount of praise/notoriety and secured many coveted alterna-festival bookings in the several years they’ve been performing/recording.

But me, I live down south and don't make it to many coveted alterna-festivals, so I just happened to notice they were listed as co-headliners with my beloved Vibracathedral Orchestra at Café Oto in March. When I visited the event page to buy my tickets, I clicked play on the video provided in order to see what I was in for, and.... oh boy.

Drunken mosh-bro idiocy from the spectators notwithstanding, this is pretty jaw-dropping.

Jan/Feb is a time of year that always demands some total fucking noise, and Guttersnipe are providing it in as exciting and unconventional a fashion as one could hope for. Each track on their bandcamp is a prime, compromise-free head-cleaner. Which is just as well, as I’d have trouble stomaching more than one of them in a single sitting.

Potentially recalling New York’s Slasher Risk, an aggressively feminized ‘80s Skullflower, Afri Rampo possessed by an Abyssinian war-god or my wildest dreams circa 2003, this is synapse-tearing stuff indeed. Check out ‘Sandworm Percolator’ or ‘Ophid Spy Cramp’ on their “Demo” and fall from your chair in involuntary supplication.

Doubly, trebly looking forward to that date in March.

(Of course, if I were paying attention, I could have been hepped to Guttersnipe WAY BACK IN 2016 when my old pal Stewart Smith wrote up a review of ‘em on a website I visit more or less everyday… ah well.)

(The photo above is taken from that piece and credited to Eleni Avraam.)

Labels: Guttersnipe, noise, punk