Some tracks just wake you right up like a belated Ice Bucket Challenge. PERMO’s new single ‘Matryoshka’ opens with brute force drums that feels like a Gorilla pounding your chest and then the bass and guitar join in and that pounding becomes a relentless, driving force. Live, this track must act like a puppet master making you throw yourself into the melee and losing your mind within the moment. Falkirk’s own, PERMO are Ross Malcolm on drums, Ryan Georgeson on bass and Ross Ferguson on vocals and guitar.
A matryoshka is a set of Russian nesting dolls, one inside the other, and the metaphor of being literally ‘full of yourself’ is superbly mined in the lyrics. ‘Matryoshka’, bass player Ryan says, “‘is a blistering tirade aimed at the self-centred, egotistical members of our generation who insist on polluting good conversations with their one-upmanship and exaggerated anecdotes“. The opening line is “I can hear you droning on in the background, something I don’t really care about. One of your many accomplishments, when are they building your monument?”.
This excoriating attack on the “me” culture is balanced on a knife edge. The music has the feel of being dragged behind a car on a dirt road and Ross Ferguson’s has the power in his voice to punch through the engine’s roar and weaponize his scorn to devastating effect. This is a band in lockstep; three people focused on the job in hand: bulldoze ego and lay waste to self-obsession and I, for one, am happy to chip in on the diesel bill.
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MATRYOSHKA – Lyrics
I can hear you droning in the background, Something I really don’t care about
One of your many accomplishments. When are they building your monument?
Never met a man so self-obsessed. Really putting my patience to the test
Semen stains on your mirror frame. See your reflection and you’re hard again
Layers and layers, so full of yourself
Layers and layers, so full of yourself
Layers and layers, so full of yourself
Layers and layers, so full of yourself
Layers and layers, so full of yourself
Layers and layers, so full of yourself
Russian doll. Russian doll. Russian doll.
Matryoshka. Matryoshka. Matryoshka. Matryoshka
Big swagger, big shagger, think you’re Mick Jagger. But the truth is you’re a joke
And I don’t believe every egg you’ve cracked has had a double yoke
Never met a man so self-obsessed. Really putting my patience to the test
Semen stains on your mirror frame. See your reflection and you’re hard again
Layers and layers, so full of yourself.
Layers and layers, so full of yourself
Layers and layers, so full of yourself
Layers and layers, so full of yourself.
Layers and layers, so full of yourself
Layers and layers, so full of yourself
Russian doll. Russian doll. Russian doll
Matryoshka. Matryoshka. Matryoshka. Matryoshka
Review by Paul F Cook
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