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Town & Country Club,
London DELIVERANCE Screaming Blue Messiahs You have to listen. Even though reverb is making his words hard to catch, it's obvious from the panic-stricken look in Bill Carter's eyes, and from his tone of barely suppressed hysteria, that the things he's trying to tell us about are terrifying, crucial, impossible to ignore. Those words which do filter through make it clear that here is a man who has looked closely and carefully at the world around him and, after sober reflection, has come to the conclusion that the only possible logical response to it is to go noisily berserk. However, being an inspired if somewhat traditionalist musician, he has constructed a thrilling soundtrack for the horror; a sparse, stripped-down R'n'B with splintered guitar, eloquent bass and busy drums jabbering out frantic rhythms. And over it all Carter pleads, explains and rages, sometimes even bursts into song. You can dance – it's easy actually, given those rhythms – but to do so seems almost indecent, when communications of such urgency are flying around your ears. Lately, I'd been leaning more and more towards the view that the terms "great" and "rock" were mutually exclusive. But Screaming Blue Messiahs make exhilarating, breath-taking, great rock music.
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