In The City is now only a couple of days away. 200-odd bands poised to descend on Manchester, and those of us that are so inclined will sample as many as possible, before slinking home, ears ringing with the combined mish-mash of sounds.
Chapter 24 are playing at In The City, forming part of this tinnitus-inducing slew of new music; but more interestingly, they seem to take the resulting sonic mental muddle as a starting point. Let me explain. Or rather, let their brilliantly vibrant song Love explain:
Now here’s a band with more ideas than they know what to do with. Actually, that’s a fib – Chapter 24 do indeed know what to do with them: chuck it all into the song and let God sort ’em out. This kitchen sink approach rarely works, but as with Gallops, occasionally a band has just enough brio and panache to pull it off.
Perhaps I’m damning them with faint praise, so here goes: this song is clearly infused with twitchy invention, tack-sharp assemblage and, despite the clutter of noise, has a coherency that most bands would kill for.
As the song finishes, you’ll be bewildered by the journey you’ve just taken. Rockabilly, art-rock, jangle-pop, twee-tinkling, noisecore, neo-world music, Donk (OK, not Donk): it’s all there in one guise or another.
They take so many right turns that inevitably the song ends up right back where it began: a snake eating it’s own tail. Chapter 24 create their own parameters and can tell their tales they way they want. Single-mindedness tastes good.