DEAD COMBO

DEAD COMBO VIDEO, Doxies Blanch dir. ANDREW ROMATZ



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The Dead Combo gig at Koneisto festival in Finland was excessively hyped in the media in advance. Apparently the two Finnish ex pats residing in New York showed the snotty club kids the true meaning of rock’n’roll, including inviting Nuutti Kataja’s mother on stage at one point. I felt sorry for missing the gig, but only when listening to their album do I realize just how sorry I ought to feel.

Vocalist Kataja and his partner Harri Kupiainen raise hell utilizing a simple but deadly array of weaponry: two guitars, one moog, a drum machine and a microphone. The ghosts of Suicide and The Jesus and Mary Chain rattle their chains fiercely in a glorious eruption of guitars blaring and screeching, while Kataja mans the microphone with a decadent New York attitude that defies description. Dead Combo possesses a certain weight in its slow, unrelenting furor that most of the other candidates for the feedback garage rock throne (Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Raveonettes and so on into eternity…) are lacking.

All the evidence point to an amazing live experience. Repeated exposure to the studio album induces a certain numbness after the initial enthusiasm – such intensity cannot keep you engaged forever. Tracks like ”Tech Out” and ”2002” make clear that Dead Combo is not limited to rock mannerisms. Here the undercurrent of electronic beats gets to trickle out of the sewers and shine on its own, while Kataja can shut up and concentrate on twiddling the knobs of that Moog.

Dead Combo is at its best on ”Doxies Blanch”, with Kataja crooning like a devilish Iggy Pop and guitars clashing with synthesizer ditties.

MATTIAS HUSS



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NORMAN RECORDS REVIEW

Crap release of the week as far as I'm concerned is one of those advance things on Output, a label that clearly thinks it's so much cooler & groovier than it actually is. Imagine Suicide crossed with Primal Scream but really shit & with awful sneering tuneless RAWK vocals then you have Dead Combo. Dead in the water more like. Fuck off you wankers. 7" only for the trendy London fashion media whore in your life.



Now I'm not one to get on my high horse (snigger) but what is this current (if not long standing) obsession with heroin chic? Dead Combo have their, frankly tedious, "anthem" to, presumably, cold turkey 'You Don't Look So Good" out properly on 12" & everything with shit remixes & the works. Pasty faced sweaty knobhead on the cover who looks like he's eaten Spacemen 3, Suicide & ARE Weapons & now feels a bit sick. Like me after hearing this contrived abortion of a record. Bafflingly, Fat Barry Snr. thinks this is "a slight improvement on the previous one" Please, no more!!!! Oh & if you ignored last weeks Lopazz 12" (on Output, like this) then yr missing a treat if you like amusing record sleeves. The music is rubbish but really, if ever a record could win complete merit for cover design then that would be the one.



I really don't feel Dead Combo deserve a fraction of the column inches we devote to them (What? are we a fucking newspaper now? Pedantic Ed.) So I'll keep this brief. They've covered 'Let's Dance' by the Bowiemeister. Funny as fuck I say! I hope he kicks their ugly sweaty pale faces off. Silly bastards. It's on the flip of the 7" version of the single we had in on 12" last week that no-one bought. I wonder why? On Output. A right set of bastards.



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