IKARA COLT
Chat and Business (Epitaph)
Reviewed by DJ Johnson

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From the streets once walked by Jack The Ripper, this Whitechappel-area group of Brits do some slashing of their own, the victims apparently being some of Claire Ingram's speaker cones. We're talking about some nasty guitar tones that snarl and sting, but you should know up front that we're not talking about conventional "one-to-three-four" punk the likes of which you find on every other CD in the bin. There's creativity here, even streams of musical consciousness that can make a song stay in the neighborhood of one chord most of the way through but have enough single note variations and sheer energy to make you feel like you've just heard something complex and amazing. If it grabs you by the imagination, then it is amazing, and a closer examination of Ikara Colt's sound reveals surprising circuitry behind that wall of guitar, such as low register synths provided by vocalist Paul Resende, electronic drums shadowing Dominic Young's actual playing, the powerful and even aggressive bass work of Jon Ball, and Resende's perfectly imperfect vocals. He's not one of those annoying out-of-tune singers. More of an impassioned shouter. Nothing else would work within Ikara Colt's noise and adrenaline framework. Too many decent bands are putting out decent albums worthy of fairly good reviews, and too few are putting out albums like Chat and Business, which won't be everybody's cup of tea, but will knock a lot of people for a loop and have them checking the CD stores for the next release on a regular basis.

© 2003 - DJ Johnson