‘Leeeeefs’, the 4th studio album by magenta placenta

‘The band that time remembered’ was the slogan plastered, in every absence of the word, on every poster advertising the return of THE original “two album wonder, one album wander” muchness-collective of the mid-‘60s. You’d be forgiven for having forgotten every trace, and every lace, of the “Totality of Nothingness” (Funky Munky Music and Mugs Magazine, 17/6/65) co-operative that occasionally coalesced into magenta placenta. I’m pretty sure they’d forgotten too, such was the quantity of alkaline and amino they were said to have inhaled in those head-stuffed tenths of a decade (or “years”). Rumours swirl the ensemble like briefs in a pond that’s been swirled, fuelled by nothing more than the lead singer Alf Limsep’s not just refusal to die, but his blind unacceptance that it even exists. “Show me the proof!” has become something of a catchphrase for the riddled stepfather. Rumours like the one about the secret theme park they accidentally built under the Mersey. The one about the pen they designed that does literally anything except write. The one that the drummer is actually called Warren. And like an amino-addled piranha, the rumours engulfed the “Caretakers of Frenzy” (Buttonzs Imprint, 31/8/66) until they were nothing more than some old skin, bits of sick and three albums.

Nothing more, that is, until earlier this March, when at least four posters went up, bathing some of Ealing in green, white and green, heralding the Chronic Sonics’ big, bad, balding return. Yes, their amorphous blob has drifted through several different incarnations, coronations and actual carnations in the intervening years (and thank goodness they intervened), rendering not one original member in the current ‘line-down’ (not sure), begging the eternal question: if you replace the bristles and the handle of a brush, is it still magenta placenta? Yes, it seems, is the answer. The worryingly young collective is describing this latest album as “back to basics, like bread and soup”, and I agree, if by “basics” you mean “slivers of slurry”. Slurry truly is the only word for Leeeeefs, an album about as comprehensible as a hen in a bin. The first two tracks on the album are the sounds of two women talking about their first, second and fifth favourite curries, whilst the rest of the first side involves a bell tolling in what can only be described as a racist way.

The second side is much worse. It’s mostly an ode to rowing (on a river and in an argument) but told from the perspective of a tin. One of the songs painstakingly translates three passages from the Tibetan Book of the Dead into binary and then back again, over a hopping pop that stops to flop. It’s the best song of the album. The final song stops halfway through, and the disc wipes itself. I think that’s probably for the best.

You’ll like this if you like:

• Olden Amanda Holden, by The End of the Garden

• Hurry If You Want A Curry, by Men

• 2+2=France, by Shams Fish Bar