Life in the Loading Bay

Shriekback's long and convoluted journey has developed its own outstanding quirks and qualities since being formed in 1981 by Dave Allen and Barry Andrews (who'd been spending some time with Robert Fripp's League of Gentlemen after departing from XTC in 1979). Now he's back with original member, guitarist-singer Carl Marsh, and they find themselves producing the twelfth album to bear the Shriekback name [their third on Malicious Damage] and sitting most comfortably, if restlessly, at the cutting edge of song-based music in 2010, carrying a similar devilish, panoramic world-view to, perhaps, Nick Cave's Bad Seeds. The Shriekback sound and the way it's delivered has matured and developed like a fine, potent wine, accentuating Barry and Carl's personal but sometimes surreal lyrics, which are another story in themselves; their own brand of narrative, crafted so that every syllable packs a wallop, whether humorous, poignant or biting, recalling anyone from Julian Cope to the Alabama 3.