Bridal Shower – Negatives

Psych, grunge, shoegaze, emo… the list of revived genres over the last decade stretches on. One of the most fruitful, however (not to mention reassuringly off-radar), has been the underground explosion in noise rock, where bands like Pissed Jeans and Metz have taken post-punk’s gnarlier leanings back to the 80s heyday of labels like Touch and Go. Glasgow’s Bridal Shower are the latest to follow in this ear-shredding tradition, and there’s certainly a lot to love about debut album Negatives. 

They’re best when either riffing aggressively and dissonantly (see third track Attention for a Scratch Acid throwback done right), or simply concocting fractured melodies with frazzled intensity – Tapeworm starts out like the Pixies at their most freaked-out, then dives into a restrained anti-chorus, like Robert Pollard at his most morose.

Sure, there are moments among these nine tracks that feel a little too polite – try as they might, they’ll struggle to fully replicate the unhinged mania of obvious heroes like David Yow – and you occasionally wonder if a rougher production job might have enhanced the enviable nastiness at their music’s core. Still, the ideas and the songs are all there – these are exciting beginnings indeed.

Listen to: Attention, Tapeworm