Another Form of Relief

Each time I write about Nosferatu D2 on here, I say to myself that it’ll be the last time. Excellent as they were, they broke up two years ago now, so what more can I keep saying? If I haven’t sold you on them by this point, odds are I’m not going to.

Step forward the “specialists in commercial suicide” Audio Antihero who have taken it upon themselves to finally get the debut Nosferatu D2 album a proper release. It would be easy to write this off as both pointless and/or foolhardy. These songs need to be out there though, and AA deserve nothing but praise for getting it done.

As with his more recent Superman Revenge Squad project, it’s Ben Parker’s songwriting abilities that are the main attraction here. Over the course of ten songs, we move from ferocious attacks on his home town of Croydon to melancholy laments at Christmas to that shitty feeling of every band disappointing you eventually. This is accompanied by music that shifts from the violently abrupt on some songs to subtle backing on others. It’s an odd record, one that regularly contradicts itself, but as a snapshot of what it’s like to be a young adult on the periphery of London, you’ll be hard pushed to find anything better.

Not bad for a band that was only around for a couple of years.

We’re Gonna Walk Around This City With Our Headphones On To Block Out The Noise should be released on October 16 via Audio Antihero. The songs have been remastered, artwork supplied by the band and comes with a retrospective inlay. You can’t say fairer than that for £5.99

Every now and again I’ll run across something that I instantly love. Coming up with new content for here on a daily basis means that I post a lot of stuff that I like, but don’t have that immediate connection with. The ones that do tend to be the bands that end up being part of our Great British Hopes series. Assuming that they are British of course.

The Sailplanes are currently based in Berlin, but luckily for me they formed in London. They make a kind of noisy, messy pop that is difficult to categorise. My first thought was to label them as “Life Without Buildings on ritalin”, but that sounded more insulting than it should. The song structures certainly resemble LWB though, stop/starting and jumping all over the place. Then some of their songs started sounding like “the best thing Nosferatu D2 never recorded”, which is fitting as they seem to have both come from the same scene.

Reading back I can see that I haven’t managed to articulate my excitement for this band at all. They really are the best thing I have encountered in a long time though. Choosing just one song to post was a hard enough battle in itself. Just download Tilted and listen for yourself. Then go to their site and download all the rest.

Every band I’ve ever loved has let me down eventually
The worst album will always be the last one
It’s a grower, yeah, but it never grew on me

I really should stop writing about Nosferatu D2. They never recorded anything properly and only played a handful of gigs, the last of which was a year and a half ago. Yet I still keep coming back to them.

It was the above lines in A Footnote that brought me back this time. I don’t know if it’s just the way things work, but it certainly holds true to my own tastes. Perhaps it’s the constant search for the next favourite that makes the previous one lose their appeal quickly. It could be something else entirely. It’s true though. There are a ton of bands where I adored the first album or two and now don’t even bother listening to what they put out. When I do listen, I tend to regret it and return to the older stuff. Maybe all bands should break up after one album or a set time period or something. It would certainly keep things fresh.

So I don’t know whether or not I’m saddened by the loss of Nosferatu D2 so quickly. Ben Parker is definitely one hell of a songwriter and is doing good stuff within his Superman Revenge Squad project. It’s kind of a shame that we won’t get to see what ND2 would have come up with, but at least they can’t eventually let me down.

What would you do if you were the last person left in the world? You’d probably have quite a few things you’d be able to do that you never had the chance to previously. Ben Parker, aka Superman Revenge Squad, is quite the opposite. He’d rather tell you what he wouldn’t do. He wouldn’t reading books because there will be no girls to see him reading them and give him “knowing looks”. Instead, he’ll just feel sorry for himself.

This kind of lyrical honesty echoes through When Everyone’s Dead. Tracking our lead through the early years of his life through the grunge explosion and the sudden horror of discovering he’s turning into a goth. He’s unapologetically literate, to the point where the song almost stops just so he can rant about that “sexist, talentless twat” Jack Kerouac.

You can download the other two songs from Superman Revenge Squad’s single absolutely free from those lovely people at God Is In The TV.

Nosferatu D2 formed in June 2005 and broke up in June 2007. For two years they did their thing, recording ten songs and playing eighteen whole gigs. I was lucky enough to be at their final gig, a support slot for Los Campesinos! back in March, although it wasn’t their final one at the time. They played through their songs to a room of 50 or so mildly interested people. I don’t know if that’s a good end for a band or not. Regardless of whether it is, they deserve a little attention.

The band was made up of two brothers from Croydon. Ben sang and played guitar while Adam did his drumming thing. For a band without even a bass player, they developed a rich sound, which is all the more impressive for songs that were (I think) home recorded. Their most memorable songs were upbeat tirades about consumer culture and the modern music scene peppered with some very bizarre tangents. The songs that grew on you were slower, more reflective numbers. Both had their place, and they worked well side by side.

MP3 Nosferatu D2 – Broken Tamagotchi (expired)
MP3 Nosferatu D2 – A Footnote (expired)
MP3 Nosferatu D2 – Springsteen (expired)

Those songs are all from the upbeat end of their catalogue, but you can download all ten songs from their lastfm page. Ben now does his own thing in the more restrained, but no less interesting Superman Revenge Squad.

Nosferatu D2: Myspace

What’s the point in anything but money?
We’re gonna write a song like Coldplay
We’re gonna creep into the top 40
We’re gonna tour until we hate each other’s guts

Superman Revenge Squad, despite the name, is a man called Ben and his guitar. These are not so much songs as spoken word diatribes about anything and everything, from lamenting the past to the state of the music industries to amusingly tragic tales of private detectives. The music doesn’t really matter, it’s all about the words. Which is for the best, because as songs these are disjointed at best. These songs are littered with vocals that go wandering off on separate tangents and leave the music behind. But it doesn’t really matter as you’ll usually find yourself nodding in agreement with everything he’s saying.

MP3 Superman Revenge Squad – Idiot Food (expired)
MP3 Superman Revenge Squad – Been a Private Detective for 17 Months (expired)
MP3 Superman Revenge Squad – Kendo Nagasaki (expired)
MP3 Superman Revenge Squad – The Devil Has Two Hands (expired)
MP3 Superman Revenge Squad – A Funny Thing You Said (expired)
MP3 Superman Revenge Squad – When Everyone’s Dead (live) (expired)

Superman Revenge Squad: Myspace

Ben is also the lead singer and guitarist of the fantastic Nosferatu D2, so you should go and listen to them as well.