I should never google what a band name means. It sends you down a rabbit hole from which you don’t recover easily.
Take Double Crush Syndrome. Glam, punk, metal and all kinds of cool shit all mix in this half an hour, but here’s me, listening to it on a journey home late at night and thinking to myself: “I wonder if it’s a real syndrome?”
Turns out, for those who care, it is. And it is listed thus: “Double crush syndrome is a distinct compression at two or more locations along the course of a peripheral nerve that can coexist and synergistically increase symptom intensity. In addition, dissatisfaction after treatment at one site may be the result of persistent pathology at another site along a peripheral nerve.”
Trouble is, I don’t know what it means.
And I’d have been far better to stick to what I do know instead. Which is this: Double Crush Syndrome – the band not the actual, urmmm syndrome – rules.
This, apparently, is their second record. And Film maker Andy Brings, is on a mission. He wants to save rock n roll. Now, rock n roll seems pretty safe to me – I get about a million albums to review a week it seems to me, but buried within the press pack that came with this record is this paragraph. “Especially Metal has become terribly boring and predictable, and is spoonfeeding the listener the same ready-made stuff over and over, and became worse pop than pop itself. I’d rather wish death upon bad metal than bad pop, because I don’t give a damn about bad pop. rock and it´s values on the other hand are very near and dear to our hearts.”
And you see, I rather think Andy might have a point here, I barely review “metal” anymore, because nothing sounds different.
And yet, at the end of “Whore” the lead track here, there is a proper Maiden gallop. Notwithstanding that the rest of it rather sounded like a glitter cannon going off in Willy Wonka’s factory.
There is a quite astonishing mix of styles on here. “Death To Pop” is insanely catchy, part metal, part stomp, and part 70s glam, it is wholly glorious. And right at the end there is Priest-esque scream. And much like the definition of Double Crush Syndrome, you can’t really grasp how it pieces together. You just have to accept it does. It is wonderful.
“Refuse To Kiss Ass” is not just a song, it seems, but a mission statement. Post punk, if you want, but played by Poison. Just know that by the time it’s done, you are going to be singing it.
There’s no escape.
Best of all, perhaps – and I’ve changed my mind on this about 15 times – is “Cocaine Lips”. Dumb, full of bravado and sort of sounding like a speeded up version of “Leader Of The Pack” it distils rock n roll to its purest form, and does so fabulously.
“Souls To Sell” manages to sound like The Sisters Of Mercy, but only if they wrote bubblegum pop, which they don’t. So at this point, your only option is to forget analysing it, and instead just adore it. It’s far simpler.
Because then you can just enjoy “I’m In Love With You” – which sounds genuinely happy, sweet and innocent – without weighing yourself down with thoughts of why and how it works, or what the “message” is.
It’s the stark differences that get you. “With Me” has the acoustic tinges and widescreen intent of an indie arena rocker, while the pure ebullience of “Mistakes Me Love To Make” floors you with its sloganeering. “Money’s good, but fame is better” sneers Brings as he nails celebrity culture, while “We Cannot Be Ruled” in many ways is this band.
Three minutes of punk rock intent that dares you to take them on. Spoiler alert, you’d lose. “Tonight” makes an anthem of standing up for the “freaks that really don’t care, what all the other people think” and whilst many bands might not mean it, you suspect these do.
The last one is a cover of a German song, “Die Berühmten Drei Wrote” (I can’t speak German but apparently it means “The famous three words”. Whatever, it’s ace.
I could write something trite in conclusion and say “that’s because rock n roll is a universal language” or some shite. But this deserves better, because nothing about this is trite and nothing plays it safe.
So just set your sights on kill instead, because Double Crush Syndrome” are not messing about. If you are in a boring band, they want you dead.
Rating 9/10
