Sigh. It’s as predictable as the sun rise, toast landing jam-side down and David Beckham harvesting acres of column inches every time he trims his beard.
A band called Shit Horse was always going to appear on ANBAD, from the moment I read their name. Yes, I rolled my eyes too.
Perhaps I ought to have a more rigorous set of criteria for selecting bands – an ethos a little more robust than “Funny Name = Instant Review“, but where would be the fun in that?
Shit Horse // Don’t Smell Too Good (But It Keeps Me From Burning)
Besides, Shit Horse are good. And, like The Vacinnes last week, they reveal frighteningly little about themselves on the internet, which leaves me free to fill in the gaps with all kinds of half-truths.
Don’t Smell Too Good (But It Keeps Me From Burning) is a curate’s egg – combining blunt garage rock, a suggestion of electronic jiggery-pokery and bowel-clenchingly gutsy blues vocals may not be a sure-fire route to financial success, but it sure as hell sounds like a blast. If this song was an animal, it’d be a foetid fox, howling ferally, one leg trapped in barbed wire.
Who are Shit Horse? Why are Shit Horse? Such questions have teased and tantalised humanity throughout the ages. Until answers are provided, we’ll have to be satisfied with a song that’s twice as grubby and half as careful as we’d probably ask for, but one that we definitely deserve.
Shithorse is the best new music around.