German duo do it their way again
It’s a truism that throughout rock n roll, the very best, the truly great of rock n roll have always looked like a gang.
Whether that’s Elvis in 68, The Rolling Stones, Guns n Roses or any of the rest, they’ve always looked like they had a chip on their shoulders and a point to prove.
That appears to be especially true when dealing with the duo. Then they really do look like it’s them against the world and don’t you dare get in their way.
But that’s especially especially true when it comes to The Picturebooks. The German twosome of Fynn Claus Grabke and Philipp Mirtschink make their records in the same place that refurbish old motorcycles and have a bond of the truly inseparable.
That crosses over into the music they make too. Like some middle ground between blues and just plain darkness, they are – in a world where everything is as homogenised as a Big Mac meal – something completely different.
Everything they do is infused with some primal charge. Not just because Phillip doesn’t bother with cymbals and smashes his kit with a mallet and Fynn plays vintage guitars he bought in second hand shops (although let’s be honest this does help) but because they have the natural air of the outsider about them.
There are a few times here where they work themselves into a frenzy. “Wardance” is aptly named, and the opening riff to “Fire Keeps Burning” is so big that it is indecent, and that reckons without “I Need That Oooh” which deals with urges so basic that almost violates you. Hell, even the instrumental “Cactus” is gloriously unhinged and ever so slightly mad.
Along the way there are a few moments of gentility. Strangely, though that makes them even more unsettling. “On These Roads I’ll Die”, “Heathen Love” and “I Came A Long Way For You” seem to use the quiet they occupy to offer some unspeakable bleakness, a thought that really comes to the fore with the final track on the record – another instrumental, “Inner Demons”, which really is set up to be the soundtrack to your nightmares
There is something of a bygone age about The Picturebooks. “Get Gone” could easily a song for the chain-gang in a parallel universe and the evil sounding “Bad Habits Die Hard” is surely exactly what Robert Johnson had in mind when he legged it to the crossroads to do his deal with the Devil.
There are, however, two cuts in particular that distil the very essence of The Picturebooks. The restrained – and almost funky – title song, starts like some vision of voodoo but doesn’t sound like anyone else, while a little later comes “Zero Fucks Given”. This might as well be the bands trademark. “Zero Fucks Given/ that’s how I’m living” goes it’s chorus – but it means more. Other bands talk about being different. Real visionaries go out and do it.
Records aren’t supposed to sound like “Home Is A Heartache”. No one gave The Picturebooks the rulebook.
Rating 9/10
