Scary Mother - Tai Laeo (1994)

Symphonic grunge anyone ? This is an obscure find, and a cracking lil' record if you can get hold of it. Something uncannily sinister about this weirdo-sty;e grunge that reeks of Alice In Chains, My Sister's Machine only with avant-garde orchestration and doom-laden vocals. 'Puke' combines strange, stirring, atmospheric keys with a sincere brooding, those gravelled vocals provide the uneasy edge as do the spooky dynamics. This band live up to their name with a record consumed by mystery - the superb 'Lord Of The Flies' has a killer quagmire doom riff, there are the ominous keyboards and the oddly catchy 'Who Are You ?'. Here is a band with a deep cauldron who like to stir it with an almighty stick, goodness knows what spells will be cast from this hocus pocus, toil and trouble, but witch cult leader Andrew Gillespie clearly proves that Alice In Chains were merely a wet lettuce, Scary Mother instead preferring to loiter in the murky depths of what we loosely call grunge, but instead of opting for the foppish fringe have decided on a dark cloud of English Goth and moody weight. Good stuff.

7.5/10