Reviews of Mistakes in all the Right Places

Comfortingly horrific, Steveless have created an opus that defies logic and fashion, ably straddling the divide between terror and hilarity quite perfectly. At only 19 minutes long, one might accuse Mistakes In All The Right Places of being lightweight, but a quick listen will sort that out (listening ROCKS!). Seriously, listen to it, it'll shit you up. You can almost hear the cogs of irrationality turning anti-clockwise in the brains of these cack-handed fuzz-pop maestros. Some might proclaim them the logical successors to Mclusky, but that's too… logical. And also the last time you'll hear them compared to anyone else in pop music.

The opening lounge area piano of 'On A Dream About Yul Brynner' is merely a ghostly slow-down of the sick mental freakishness of what's to follow. It lollops directly into 'Paz', which features a languid vocal display akin to Grandmaster Gareth of Misty's Big Adventure being raped by Sam Raimi in 1982 and some dirty fuzz stabs that could only be described as 'joke-math' (maybe that wasn't the last comparison). Within this, we see that the one element that remains throughout is a terrific sense of the ridiculous. There's a distinct Ivor Cutler-ian vein entrenched in the logically illogical wit and homespun production values that is, for an album designed to fuck you about, immensely charming.

A glance at the sleeve (do this after you've listened to the record, you've only go to wait 19 minutes) shows exactly how much work has gone into this micro-paean to being a clever dick. Besides being able to see the hilarious lyrics (a highlight of which reads "I had no way of quantifying, so the chart I had drawn was a waste"), you can see a formal apology from the band for actually having a member called Steve. Again, we can see that the function of Steveless is governed more by a need to create their own laws and stick to them (and apologise of they are breached) and also to ensure that they are as unaffected by anything external as possible.

Any longer, and this release would have been overdone. Any shorter and it would seem too much like an assault. As it stands, Mistakes In All The Right Places is a gem, perfectly immersed in itself without being too self-involved, and containing the correct pinches of humour to never let this become too self-involved. It is self-aware, but only in a way that enhances the connection between band and listener. And it helps that some of the tunes utterly fucking kick. Turn it up and forget you ever heard of pop music. This is better.

Daniel Ross for Drowned in Sound.

Fast becoming one of our favourite labels, Blackpool’s Cherryade records are the true vanguard of underground pop, not for them the easy, normal, casual lark along the route to the next big thing - instead their roster brags an inspired yet uniquely obscure breed of (in a perfect world) should be next big thing contenders namely Listen with Sarah, Tall Pony and pretty much ever one who graced last Christmas’ festivities by appearing on that extremely essential goody bag that was the Cherry Christmas compilation. But then nothing quite compares with release number 11.

Great pop should always split and divide consensus into those that don’t get it and won’t get it and those who’ll literally hang at the edge of their seat thinking ‘what the fuck was that?’ It usually helps if there’s a degree of eccentricity about the whole thing, this nation prides itself on eccentricity especially the kind that teeters on the edge of dementia. Finally it should annoy and amuse and instil upon you the overwhelming need to scratch some hitherto non existent itch.

Steveless not only excel with these principles but bag the buggers up in a bin liner, dig a deep hole, thrown them in, cover up the whole and piss on it for fun.

Steveless are bad in a good way and for that matter good in a bad way. ’Mistakes in all the right places’ sees the Bristol based ensemble (set around the twisted talents of Dan Newman) step out for the second full length (their first was 2005’s ’Popular theory in music’ which we’ll be buggered to admit we somehow missed). Twelve tracks - nineteen minutes in total duration - vaguely upsetting, sporadic, petulant, frenetic, spastic loon pop is what’s on offer - too brief for its own good but then had it been any longer you’d have been fearing for your sanity. Steveless are not so much the flies in the ointment but rather more an infestation, to describe them musically is to round up a potent hybrid of all the outside guitar based pop that a certain Mr Peel had expressed a fondness for and mould them into a neat one stop resource.

Obscure unhinged DIY art / noise / hardcore / shambolic / math core derived pop that freewheels with such cavalier attitude that it sucks you in to its world whether you like it or not, from the schizoid rain drenched death head funereal blues of the opening cut ’on a dream about yul bryner as a robotic cowboy like he was in the film westworld’ with its macabre / maudlin Fall-esque accents to the closing ’teatime’ - think Sonic Youth at their most wilfully corrupt in a face off with Atari Teenage Riot, ’Mistakes in all the right places’ never relents or loosens its vice like grip. Instead each track arrives like an unseen miniature assault your only concern is to how and with what means that spanking is going to manifest on your hi-fi. The scalding ’Paz’ sounds like a seriously beaten up and pissed as farts on moonshine Violent Femmes being cruelly provoked by Jello Biafra and Mojo Nixon while ’to hell with boring’ veers teasingly close to the frenzied trash punk of the Boys Next Door while fans of Prolapse would do well to retune themselves into ‘Homework’ not to say admirers of the Cravats being literally hoofed from their comfort zone with the wired and warped brace of cuts - ‘Steveless is a bad friend’ and the decidedly loosely trippy ‘patience’. Elsewhere ‘I don’t know why but recently but recently I’ve begun to feel al apologetic for spending so much of my life sitting in my bedroom (I guess I should stop watching so much tele, I mean. my life could never be as exciting as the folk who go n that big brother, so I don’t know why I let myself get so concerned)’ besides possibly being one of the longest song titles ever to grace a record it actually takes longer to read than the length of the track - how strange.

And no record daring to teeter or veer into the abstract detached haze of pop’s outside of left field margins ought not to do so without passing - however brief - a nod in the direction of Wire, and so it is with ‘the obligatory love song’ that the fractured states of Newman (no relation) and Co’s maddening ‘I am the Fly’ are cleverly rewired, recalibrated and sent on their way in fried fashion to ruffle fringes and scramble heads alike. Fall reference points a la ‘Bend Sinister’ era Smith and Co peak again the buckled jazz decoded muted rock-a-billy boogie that is ‘don’t have an existential crisis on me, rhys’. If the aforementioned Mr Peel where still around today then there’s no debating that this impish lot would be a regular fixture at Peel acres doing Thursday evening recitals much to the overbound joy of the local Stowmarket residency - alas for us mere mortals stumbling across these hapless souls is in essence a trial by accident - be thankful then that kindred souls such as Cherryade are keeping alight the flame of odd pop.

Mark Barton for Losing Today.

An extraordinary tantrum of fury and noise, Steveless release their latest album through Lancashires finest Indie label of choice Cherryade Records. It's a neat touchstone for the label having launched themselves with the debut album from the same band.

The first thing that strikes you about this album is the sheer impact - Think of a Vauxhall Corsa full of Rhinos ram raiding a local music shop (the smashing glass part not the part where they work out what colour guitar would suit them best!) Distorted guitars and feedback shower across the mix like shrapnel, bulldozing any other instrument that happens to get in its way.

Offering up spaz-rock breaks of pure noise in the vein of Meet Me in St Lois, and even the dynamic mentalness of sadly defunct Texan noise-niks At The Drive In, this record is unlike anything else that has dropped through the letterbox recently. That's not to say that the songwriting takes a back seat to the noise though. Like a magic eye picture if you stare at them long enough, conventional structures are in there somewhere and as the band work through the tracks here in double quick time, they even break for 'the obligatory love song' before rousing itself to an astonishingly noisy climax.

A cathartic release of an album - there is no doubt that this is a rare noise indeed and one that you would be best advised to snap up as soon as your eardrums dare.

Ben M for The Mag.

T: Do you think our old friends have been plundering old Cramps B-sides, as well as revisiting "Hex Enduction Hour" amongst other Fall nuggets? If they have, then they clearly decided to just play a LITTLE bit of the tune and then bung a load of feedback in there to see the track out. Likeable lightning quick bursts of energy are sat uncomfortably with tuneless noise, yet somehow the whole thing works. If you know any people who listen to Heart FM on a regular basis, you should play this at them at full volume, just because they deserve it.

N: Never failing to amuse, even the sub 20 minute content over 12 tracks can't fail to raise a smile. Steveless again show they have balls the size of melons in releasing even what Mark E Smith might avoid. This artist's charm comes at the listener like a 4 wheel drive does at a Glasgow airport. Three cheers for the independence of Steveless. Purely wonderful.

Nick and Tone E for Atomic Duster.

Our monthly dive into the mine of Cherryade Records comes up with more 24-carrot stuff as Steveless produce the first second album, as it were, on the label with their record Mistakes in All the Right Places. Nicely named and fairly true as the shaky musician-ship around the record is nothing if not endearing and the tendency to yell and crash symbols is also appreciated. Add to that Nick Cave/ Eighties Matchbox vocals, a few cool bleeps and a bit o' feedback and you've got one mother of a band!!

Alex Lawson for Shadowplay.