Vacuum Spasm Babies - Science EP

While music journalists aren’t inherently mischievous (honest), it’s hard to shake the feeling that Vaccum Spasm Babies – led by the former editor of Sun Zoom Spark - have their tongues squashed firmly in their cheeks on Science. Aside from MHz (which first appeared on last year’s Whipping Clowns LP), these tracks sound more like krautrock pastiche than a naturally-occurring style – Flight of the Kraftwerk, replete with mannequins on the cover and bleeps, blips and deadpan monologues in the mix. But give them the benefit of the doubt and you may get satisfaction from the cool strut of Chemical Burns and cranked riff of Science Division, with the robust instrumental Mhz suggesting irreverence isn’t their only setting. [Chris Buckle]