A neat bundling of two EP’s from Scotland’s Galoshins on Armellodie, who are clearly good at what they do, having also gained a glowing review for The Douglas Firs release. This is an entirely different affair however. The first 50 odd seconds made me panic a bit because I thought I was getting some sort of generic, if energetic indie. Then all of a sudden “Shake Up” explodes into a brilliant Doors-esque Farfisa organ solo before breaking down into guitar noises and shrieking. What’s going on here then ? Second song “The 4th Chord” is equally mental, being one part punk pop, one part prog rock spy theme.
It’s difficult to isolate what’s great about Galoshins, and that might be because they’re all very talented and also apparently bursting with ideas, which is why all songs take such abstract turns. The vocalist loves shouting, breathing and making all sorts of weird noises and if he’s responsible for the lyrics too then he’s clearly deranged. The guitarist is as happy banging out some standard rock chords as he is doing some arty noodling, the keyboard player’s just a genius and the bass….well it’s not often a bassist gets to show off but he certainly keeps pace. Every time you think you have them pegged they go off on a tangent, but the bands that they seem most influenced by are The Doors (keyboards), The Stranglers (vocals and punk attitude) and Pink Floyd (psychedelic rock). There’s no straight references though, with all of these and a host of others all having been chucked in a great big blender and re-formulated with a great big dash of distinctly Scottish madness. If there’s any justice Galoshins will go far.
Kim Monaghan
