Subtle Turnhips

***The French punk-garage-rock scene the past decade has seen some standout acts emerge such as Cheveu, Frustration, The Feeling of Love, Dimi Dero and more. Add the oddly-named SUBTLE TURNHIPS to this pile, as their fifth album—Redhair With Some—is proudly brought to you by Australia’s Homeless Records. The lack of hair on our Homeless head helped our hearing (try saying that rapidly 10 times)—not that we needed an aid to decide whether to release Redhair With Some—we’ve been a fan since hearing Terd Album (Hozac, 2010) and Meal (Pouet! Schallplatten, 2013) and immediately loved the rough cuts we were sent. Recruiting recording ace MIKEY YOUNG to mix the album brought a fresh new set of ears to the Turnhips sound, and another instant fan, hell we even hear some Eddy Current Suppression Ring-style guitar work in “Eileen.” Some have stated they hear Swell Maps or Pink Flag-era Wire in the Subtle Turnhips influences, whilst others have noted The Fall or even the destructionism of Brainbombs. Pressed in an edition of 350 copies in gatefold jackets with download.

“For a garage-sounding band, the Turnhips eschew anything directly catchy, and their songs lay bunched and unsorted like dirty laundry piling up on the floor. They sound pinched, if that makes sense, only to release that pressure and spill gouts of their essence all over. In moments they draw comparison to the Country Teasers in terms of their ramshackle approach, but pointed towards the Swell Maps instead of narcotics, like they really want to be a different and quantitatively better band, but factors have come into play that have prevented this, so they are this, this sort of charmingly wasted mess of a band that scrawls and scrapes its way through a bunch of songs with intent if not purpose, sleazy poise in place of character… I will recommend this, just because I think these gents have been on a path over the past 12 or so years that few would follow, and you should be curious enough to at least look in that direction.”—Doug Mosurock