JC Satàn – Sick of Love

When a band appears with a name like JC Satàn I just want to like them; more so when I discover their tunes come wrapped in the kind of feedback swirl last heard on The Jesus and Mary Chain’s Psychocandy. So it’s an almighty kick in the testicles then when such vast swathes of the band’s debut record Sick of Love leaves me colder than a dead penguin in a fridge-freezer.

The band are made up of three French blokes and two Italian ladies and the record aims to be just as avant-guarde as that suggests, with screaming, noise, sleazy guitar and interweaving boy-girl vocals à la The Pixies. But main writers Arthur Satan and Paula H are all pose and no substance, there being little amongst the scraggy lo-fi noise to encourage a second, never mind repeated, spin. A song is promised about the journey out of hell, but the only trip Sick of Love is going on is the one out of my CD player and into the dusty part of my collection reserved for records that seemed a good idea at the time. [PJ Meiklem]