Pink Narcissus – Review – Block Your Ears / Shield Your Eyes
Pink Narcissus from Brighton in the UK, brought out their latest EP a couple of months ago. Block Your Ears / Shield Your Eyes a 6 track EP which sees them shift a gear on this, their third release.
Pink Narcissus | Block You Ears / Shield Your Eyes
Opening with some great open space guitar, Pink Narcissus pull the ears in to focus with Days, a frenetic lyric is flawlessly encased in a carefully crafted tempo, urged forward with ever increasing urgency by understated percussion.
Come Crawling gets the audience of the dance floor for a moment to savour a piece which has all the elements of musical Bauhaus construction. Defined, functional yet immensely creative and experimental.
Back to an elemental rock number, which incorporates the off-beat reggae utilised by The Clash to great effect – I mean both The Clash and Pink Narcissus. Masquerade is a fine exposition of a genre of music I can only describe as ‘Net Curtains‘ – Cracking the myth of urban drones and exposing the creativity hidden behind a facade of identical housing. John Betjeman and his ‘Friendly Bombs‘ come springing to mind, as the band take the listener on a subtly created track.
Heading to Glam-Rock territory Doomed, makes me want to see this band live….. Extravagance is completely in order for a change and the band let the gamut of rock cliches roll out, which raise nothing but a smile. I am not sure I am done with analogies for this review, so let’s throw in another one. This is as self- effacing as a Scarfe Cartoon.
Syphilitic City, is an intricate track, vocals through muted megaphone and guitars exposing every note to inspection, with a drum sawing its way though the composition. This is a piece of music, which demands the highest standards of skill and Pink Narcissus ably demonstrate their ability to perform at the highest level.
We draw to the end of the release with, appropriately enough, given the weather here over the past few days – one day I will relay the story of the blocked drainage system and the flooded pub – Thundercloud. Anthemic – a stunning piece of music which engages the listener on a variety of levels. Cerebral activity is activated, the vocal chords are exercised and the heart is filled with a good feeling, not to mention that all essential waving arm and swaying body.
All in all a release to add to the playlist and as importantly you can grab Block Your Ears / Shield Your Eyes on 
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