The Whisky Works

THE WHISKY WORKS 2005-2011.
The anxious, epic guitar rock of Glasgow's The Whisky Works charges between the bruising hardcore punk rush of Husker Du, the seething melodicism of Hot Water Music, the nervy rhythms of Sparta and the overdriven pop sensibility of Rival Schools.
The interwoven guitars of Craig Swan and Ryan Mckenna alternately chime and shimmer, splinter pensive, twisting cyclical melodies from muscular hooks and burst with strident conviction into soaring, searing power chords which collide with the throat-clenching urgency of Iain Bethel's grand, powerful vocals.
These serrated melodies are driven forward by the pummelling, riveting rhythms of drummer Ralph Mackenzie and bassist Andrew Stephenson; by turns tactile and economical, by others ruthlessly aggressive
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Deficit Attention Program (2009), recorded by Romesh Dodongada and mastered by Aereogramme's Iain Cook, best showcased the dramatic, confident song-craft of The Whisky Works' early material in anthemic, dynamic, chorus-driven tracks such as 'Electric', 'Monster! Monster!' and 'Rage'.
With 'In Fiction' (2011) The Whisky Works collect their most assured material to date and establish themselves as Scotland's finest alternative rock band. 'House In The Clouds', 'Bones' and the record's title track explode with iridescent guitar figures, irrepressible vocal melodies and propulsive, intelligent rhythms.
Bethel explores the feigning deceits of 'fiction', the arbitrary inventions and imitations peopled by the ghosts, remembered lovers, sailors, archaeologists and documentarists of the record's lyrics. In the paradoxical exhortations to stay 'safe' and 'scared' the second person narration finds that all human relations are characterised by degrees of 'fiction', whether in the present-tense experience of 'what feels right' or the lamentation upon finding oneself to be little more than 'film in your camera'.
The development of these exposures is obscured by the conflation of 'our future' with 'your past', a rueful conclusion which finds no solace in the temporal unification of space and time which the photograph represents, but rather lingers on the human experience now lost but forever imitated in the fiction of the image. The complex interpersonal human relations examined in the record's central metaphors are expressed in emphatic, anthemic terms, but lose none of their crucially intimate scrutiny.



The Whisky Works' scintillating live performances have won them faithful fans the length of the country and stolen attention from headline acts including Sons And Daughters, Frightened Rabbit, Pulled Apart By Horses and Dinosaur Pile Up. Recent tourmates Tubelord even declared their admiration in the form of a distressed, beat-driven remix of Attention Deficit Program standout 'Lights'.