ALBUM REVIEW: Sly & The Family Drone – Walk It Dry

Love Love/Feeding Tube

Released: 17.07.20

Early Sly gigs took their intensity, abrasion and potential chaos from the noise scene but replaced the surly machismo with an inclusive, uplifting joyfulness which was unique and celebratory live but never quite came across on record.

Along the way, they’ve added sax and structure, and on this blistering new album, brevity too. But this is no lightweight thing: it opens with a fierce, rhythmic sax’n’drums palette cleanser, ends with a soundscape redolent of This Heat and in between veers from the almost sickening low-end lurch of Bulgarian Steel to Shrieking Grief (those titles!) which starts where a particularly manic Ex gig might end. My Torso Is A Shotgun is the highlight, alarming squiggles exploding into in-yr-face hardcore and then collapsing in a sweaty heap. Essential.