Review of 'This Is My Aunt’s House', the 5th studio album by EelPeople

A child says an upside-down word. A waxen bee bursts at quarter past three. No foxes wept last year. What do these three statements have in common? Nothing. And that is precisely what This Is My Aunt’s House, the 5th studio album by EelPeople does for me. Yet, one inwardly gasps, perhaps this is what they intended all along. EelPeople are famous for being a group for whom ‘nothing’ means ‘everything’. Inspired, variously, by pre-folk post-enthuastics Burnt At The Steakhouse, the audio graphic designer KELP, and the sound of three dogs, this band has a tendency towards the anti-anarchic, the pro-devolutionary sound of a tepid generation. And TIMAH is only the next step in their soggy plod towards the penultimate in music: The Holy Fail, if you will. And I’m sure you will. EelPeople have, in the past, compared their desire for a legacy to a drowning man’s desire for a crisp. This has never been more obvious than in their latest studio album, a swarthy blend of non-soul, smart funk, brittle plucking and forty metres of felt pens.

The opening track Let’s Name Him Ealing takes a cool draft of a pint of angry bitter, spits into a bowlful of car keys and invites us to snog them to the words ‘My kestrel said to me hey there/Have you done something to your heir’. Or is it ‘hair’? Contextually, probably the latter. But it is this constant misdirection, confusion and downright nastiness that epitomises this trio’s attitude to the modern age: one in which we’re more likely to smooth down our new barnet in a gust than worry about the names of our future children. It is this, perhaps, that is the leathery heart of this boney album: legacy is dead, long live legacy. Or is it the opposite? Sadly, we may never know, as all four members of the trio recently surgically removed their mouths and throats in preparation for their upcoming world tour of the minor bandstands of North Europe. It almost doesn’t matter.

You’ll like this if you like:

• Let’s Arm Ourselves, by Ronny the Postman

• Fr-End, by ‘Lotsa’ Carrycot

• Monday Is The Day After Friday, by unexplained mouth

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