The Surgeons are a London-and formed by cousins Jack Laver (guitar, vocals) and Oscar Mahr with Liam Toon (drums and percussion) and Kieran Little (bass) finishing off the line-up. ‘While It Rains’ is their new single and on Bandcamp you also get the track ‘Circuits’.
The track starts with the crunch-jerk of guitar that wouldn’t be out of place on a Tom Waits albums like ‘Bone Machine’. A sparse vocal line is backed by curlicues of phased guitar and the bass fills in the gaps of the stop-start drums and plays tag with the click-clack of percussion. Every now and again in the track there is a glorious exclamation mark of tom toms like a musical carriage return.
The video is a washed-out half-dream shot on 8mm or 16mm featuring white-gowned women by the sea (May Douglas and Sammie Yochelson) walking around trance-like while Jack and Oscar observe them and hold up mirrors whilst dressed like Lakeland Poet versions of Nick Cave. The whole thing has the otherworldly sense of Wicker Man or Picnic at Hanging Rock, and it creates a great visual companion the swirling atmosphere of the song.
It feels like someone has sprinkled time-slowing psychedelic dust on Link Ray, and the song manages to be both urgent in rhythm and laid back in melody and arrangement, not an easy feat but definitely a compelling one. I am definitely looking forward to hearing more lysergic-bounce from the band in the future.
The Surgeons on Instagram | Jack Laver on Instagram
Review by Paul F Cook
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