Without sounding too much like some B-movie drug-dealer I can confide that this is, my friends, very good shit.

While music thrives on innovation, your average music-reviewer – myself included – has a tendency to grimace when, reading a press release (and yes, it’s sad but true that we generally read the press release first), we stumble

across the word ‘experimental’. Usually rather than indicating imagination it flags a band unable to finsih a song,

or in the worst case scenarios those that can’t use a guitar tuner! We can forgive Wounded Buffalo Theory (what a

great name!) for using the terms ‘eclectic’ and ‘experimental’ because in this case they’re simply true.

Working from a decidedly heavy rock template, the band play around with everything. The key to it all though is

capacity – there are those bands that are ‘experimental’ because they don’t have the dexterity or skill to play it

straight, just as there are plenty of bands that keep it straight because they have no imagination. You can hear

from the outset with Wounded Buffalo Theory that they play the way they do out of intention, not through

limitations (not that limitations are such a bad thing – think of the sex pistols or nirvana).

Atlas dropped the planets had me from the title, and thankfully the song lived up perfectly to my

expectations. Complex, and rythmic, its opening sounds not a million miles away from Biffy Clyro (a damn good

thing) or a band of their ilk – something fairly astonishing given that we’re talking about an independent unsigned

band.

Guttenburg I despite its haunting and anachronistic vocal chant at the start, is one of the most ‘standard’

songs on display, but it makes up for it by its momentum and the way the vocals and instruments fire off each

other. For the most part playing off an upbeat funky groove, it smashes half-way through into a guitar/bass riff

that would make Iron Maiden proud, and just to be clear that is a compliment – strip away the pantomime image and

operatic shenanigans from Maiden and you have some serious musicianship.

Bottom of the world ignores all the rules, and works on its own merits. It takes an age to start up, gentle sounds setting the stage before launching into a beautiful and melodic tune. Bands that rock hard often find it

hard to shift down a gear, but for these guys it seems completely natural and organic. Just as organic is the shift

upwards that lifts the song towards the end into a furious end. Brilliant.

Changing into another gear the band find an electronic tinged menace in Invisible Man which works primarily off the various vocals (the band is made up of a number of singers and multi-instrumenatlists). This is a slow burner that wrings out every last drop of atmosphere in a charged setting.

This is an extremely impressive collection of songs from a band that seem to take D.I.Y to new levels, having organised their own annual festival Cabinfest (allowing them to play sets of up to three hours and more!), recorded and released various e.p’s and albums off their own bat. I’m delighted to have stumbled across them – you should too.