The omens for this album were not good. First of all it's a collaboration between Ian Svenonius of the Make-Up and Neil Hagerty of Royal Trux, two of the most overrated, underachieving bands in living memory. Secondly, it arrives with a jaw-droppingly pretentious press release, claiming that "by following the Texas Instrument Calculator theory of minimal circuitry" Weird War have "circumvented the transmission of responsible knowledge and the provocation to enact revision and the delusion of representation." A bloated monstrosity seems firmly on the cards, then but would you believe it, Weird War actually turns out to be a straightforward, no-frills rock record that's probably the most enjoyable thing its makers have ever done. Soulful, edgy and oddly romantic, this is a thoroughly unhinged blast of brassy R'n'B that seems to aspire to no more than making one almighty, joyous racket. As an album it's a little on the one-dimensional side, and it definitely runs out of steam before the end - but still, Svenonius and Hagerty have done enough here to suggest that Weird War may yet turn out to be more than the sum of their parts.
