Artfully displaying Adam & Elvis’ musical intuition, adroit syncopation and effortless manipulation of the Western scale – all set to a mesmerising surf-rock-meets-synth-pop pulse – ‘She Bites Mosquitoes’ deals with the hierarchical nature of young love and, so explains vocalist Patrick, “the desire to infiltrate tribes where you are ‘Untermensch’ (inferior people)”. This is something of a paradox given the superior sonics of Adam & Elvis’ new release, but then here is a band who make it their tune-filled business to defy accepted convention.
Listen Adam & Elvis ‘She Bites Mosquitos’ via Soundcloud: HERE
Bonded not only by blood but a taste for finding humour in the macabre, Patrick and Tom Malone are brothers whose sibling intuition extends to a penchant for songs as melodic as they are bizarre. Cut-throat guitars, dirty basslines and contorted synthesisers are their tools as the brothers pen hook-filled numbers with strange, poetic lyrics, often influenced by the stark realism in the wordplay of Patrick’s heroes Leonard Cohen and Charles Bukowski.
This bold, thought-provoking prose is set to a musical backdrop of exhilarating wall-of-sound pop and primitive punk energy, unleashed by Patrick on guitar/vocals and Tom on bass/vocals respectively, with the aid of Steve Wraight (vocals/percussion) and Dan Robershaw (guitar).
The Reading band have performed their adventurous, singularly intense live shows on the same bill as Fat White Family, The Zombies and The Correspondents, and garnered resounding praise for their blistering debut single, ‘Hanging Tree’, taken from their first long-player, Through Snow and Small Talk, to be released on the band’s own DIY Freak Power label in the autumn of 2017. It’s an album fizzing with ideas and energy, capturing Adam & Elvis in all their irreverent, witty and experimental glory, the sound of a group that have come of age and are proving as hard to pigeonhole as they are to ignore.
Tracklisting for Through Snow and Small Talk
1. Modern Hitz
2. Thick Bob
3. Hanging Tree
4. The Artiste
5. Snow Talk
6. Wasting Away
7. She Bites Mosquitoes
8. Darker Than Black
9. Cruel As Winter
10. Through Snow and Small Talk
See Adam & Elvis live
Saturday 30 September: Oakford Social Club, Reading (album launch show)
Saturday 7 October: Finborough Arms, London SW10 (album launch show)
Head Honcho, Editor in Chief and writer here on VENTS. I don't like walking on the beach, but I love playing the guitar and geeking out about music. I am also a movie maniac and 6 hours sleeper.