Sex Mask are a post-punk trio not a threesome, as that would just be juvenile. I used the same opening line for my review of the band’s EP Body Broker, released last year. It was funny then and it’s funny now. I don’t write the rules.
Sex Mask are from Down Under, which presents another opportunity for another gag. However, let’s dive into their new EP Raid. Title track ‘Raid’ hurtles along like that boulder in that Indiana Jones film. A fuzzed-up riff jostles for attention with an Eastern-tinged earworm, and both are layered over pounding motorik drums. Frontman Wry Gray announces a barrage of nonsense with the gravitas of a re-elected mayor overdoing it on the sherry. (“I was playing with a death ray” – were you now?) Hotly tipped Brummie duo GANS will be listening intently to ‘Raid’ and wondering which bits they can, er, raid.
‘TYFU’ has that surly, warped vocal effect one might associate with moody multimillionaire Drake. It’s simultaneously as vibrant as a house party and as hauntingly lonesome as being in a shopping mall in a foreign country. ‘Lockjaw’ begins like Blondie and becomes Bloc Party with a dash of Interpol. ‘Sweat’ could have been an angular banger from 2005. Kaya Martin shares vocal duties with Gray, and she sounds as gleeful and mischievous as Toni Basil flicking the Vs at an appalling basketball coach. Finally, ‘Drug Reference’ vacillates between early Beastie Boys and Nirvana, which is known in the trade as high praise indeed.
Live dates August and September
Thursday 27.08 – The Grand Social – Dublin
Saturday 29.08 – Zerox – Newcastle
Sunday 30.08 – Sneaky Pete’s – Edinburgh
Wednesday 02.09 – Oporto – Leeds
Thursday 03.09 – The George Tavern – London
Friday 04.09 – Brighton Psych Festival – Brighton,
Saturday 05.09 – Manchester Psych Festival – Manchester
Sunday 06.09 – End Of The Road – Salisbury
Thursday 10.09 – The Hope & Ruin – Brighton
Friday 11.09 – 013 Hall Of Fame – Tilburg
Saturday 12.09 – Simplon – Groningen
Sunday 13.09 – Leffingeleuren Festival – Middelkerke,
Tuesday 15.09 – Helios37 – Köln
Wednesday 16.09 – Ilses Erika – Leipzig
Thursday 17.09 – Urban Spree – Berlin
Friday 18.09 – Reeperbahn Festival – Hamburg
Saturday 19.09 – Stengade – Copenhagen
Raid is out on 14th August via Unpopular Recordings
Sex Mask: Bandcamp | Instagram | TikTok
Review by Neil Laurenson
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