Reviews

"Shambolic and random, tied to tired old ideologies that promotes idiosyncratic oddness at the expense of communicating, connecting... actually meaning anything to anyone... They should take their glorious drivel elsewhere." Melody Maker


Pointless Walks to Dismal Places

    Prolapse are a three year old six piece. Long range musical rambles and I'm faintly reminded of Radial Spangle but the barking Scottish voice is unnerving at first but after a while when your ears have adjusted, it has more character than Americanized stuff. There's sort of spoken Pulp bits, echoes of the Cocteau Twins in Burgundy Spine, but all in all Prolapse themselves create an intriguing, textured web of many sounds. Two singers and two guitarists help, but there's something more that makes me like the album more and more every time I hear it. Headless in a Beat Motel is an ace shouty one, the lengthy Chill Blown and further tracks change tack and become more hypnotic and surreal. The last track Tina this is Matthew Stone is a plain scary argument set to music where everything gets more violent and you can't wait to find out if Linda ends up killing Mick, or if Mick'll strangle Linda.

Bobbins fanzine, issue 8


    I bought this because of the magnificent title, and it certainly doesn't disappoint. The music is relatively simple, I suppose early Fall is an obvious pointer, lots of repetition and minimal chord progressions, and above this Kcirred Kcim and Linda Steelyard rant their way through the 50 or so minutes. A lot of people have compared them to Huggy Bear, but this doesn't do Prolapse justice. They write better songs for a start, they're a lot smarter and you actually know what they're on about. Doorstop Rhythmic Bloc is probably the one to convert the sceptics - good contrasting vocals and a very definite tune lurking around. I like them when they go all strange, like Burgundy Spine where the two voices recount separate dreams over an eerily simple melody. Elsewhere Prolapse get angry about police corruption (Serpico) and Spanish football (Surreal Madrid) and the album ends with what can best be described as a violent row (Tina this is Matthew Stone). Very uneasy listening, but an excellent debut.

Jonathan Greer, Weedbus issue 9

"Mein Minefield, Mine Landmine" starts us off with a tempered and melodic noise barrage that hints as to where this record will take you. Employing stout drumming, fuzzed bass, and spoken male and female vocals "Every Night I'm Mentally Crucified (700 Times)" borders on being a "proper" song but remains an exercise in the control of noise. The only song that could be a radio release is the clever "TCR" with a Fred Schneider-esque rant by Mick Derrick intertwined with a melodic line from Linda Steelyard amidst ebbing and flowing guitar power. Noise still reigns on this record as "Strain Contortion Of Bag" demonstrates. Consisting of a guitar and noise drone, this piece displays no real melody and is just the right amount of dirge to end the record with. The short "Drown Radio Therapy" lessens the drone a bit and adds a touch of drum and vocals to break it up. InNone keeping with the artrock tradition of long and varied songs, the fifteen-minute "Flex" runs the gamut of sound. Beginning with a very sparse drum and guitar vamp, it adds bass and slowly builds. This culminates in a Sonic Youth type repetitive groove interspliced with Derrick and Steelyard's intertwining vocals. As Derrick rants on, Steelyard gives a smooth melodic touch to create a diversion from the seemingly unending refrain. "Irritating Radiator" is a stutter beat awash in guitar squeal supporting more of the layered vocal pattern that has set in, before ending in a disintegration of sound. "Zen Nun Deb" gives us a dub bass line, fairly clean guitars and angelic keyboards with just a hint of vocals to take the crown for most noise free song on the record. "Framen Fr. Cesar" definitely takes the cake for most repetitive track with a never ending drum and bass loop that adds and retracts noise all throughout and is the definite head pounder here.

Prolapse proves that you can practice art-rock without trying to alienate listeners. For folks who find Sonic Youth to be a little much to handle on occasion, this is just the remedy. While experimenting in sound, Prolapse did not forget to keep melodic elements that other bands dismiss on purpose.

Tom Topkoff, Fallout magazine


    I'm willing to bet Prolapse has a very narrow appeal in this day and age - that is, unless dissonance and artsy noise collages have suddenly become fashionable. However, this shouldn't deter anyone from seeking out a copy of Back Saturday. For those who don't have a taste for skewed experimental music, this will be a bitter pill to swallow. But in the end, you'll thank yourself you did.

The British foursome is a bit like Stereolab in their loose, repetitive grooves, though Prolapse ventures into weirder experimental territory than the former. Unlike many of their peers, the band knows the value of tastefully placed distortion and feedback. This isn't just noise for its own sake.

The vocals work remarkably well over the squalling guitars and deep basslines. Linda Steelyard's sweet, heavenly voice offers a beautiful contrast to frontman Mick Derrick's. Derrick doesn't so much sing as rant, which gives many of the songs a hard, crazy edge. At other times, in songs like "TCR" and "Framen FR. Cesar," he'll simply speak his lyrics over a lurching bass line. Steelyard often does so as well, and it takes a few listens to appreciate. But it does eventually win you over and you start to enjoy the finer subtleties of the music.

The band is at their best when locked into an exhilarating groove, as in "Flex," a 15-minute masterpiece and reason enough to buy the album. The song gradually builds to a frenzied pitch and completely possesses the listener's head for the duration. Some might find Back Saturday to be self-indulgent noise and little else; it's not love at first listen. But a little open-mindedness never hurt anyone, and it just might make you a Prolapse fan.

Prolapse will be playing with Stereolab and Jessamine at Moe on Sunday.

Jesse Gorsuch, The Daily of the University of Washington

The Inside Ov A Butcher's Shop is Mick the shouty Scotsman out of Prolapse, and apparently three other grown men who have to do this to avoid getting their dole stopped.

To think they probably listened to this over and over while recording it, chills the blood. "Carnage, carnage, every fucking day of my life", they chant, for a full 31-and-a-half minutes. Then again for another five minutes on the other track on the CD.

If there is a message, aside from hilariously in-jokey Dadaist mischief, it appears to be on the sleeve, where they claim they 'utilised their now famous cardboard tube as a phallic symbol to humiliate the butchers', who, they also claim, are mostly impotent. Laugh? I nearly listened to it the whole way through.

While I admire their persistence, familiarity breeds contempt. You can imagine this being played to torture Third World dictators from their homes. Alas, most of us pampered Westerners will lack the same mental fortitude. And they say meat is murderous...

Johnny Cigarettes, NME

The medical definition of 'prolapse' is "like where you literally fart your own guts out". This is incredibly apt because Prolapse truly are the sound of rock farting its own guts out.

"I could smell skid marks, OK?... There's some inexplicable reason why legs turn orange... I've seen a huge figure with a red face, it floated towards the window... I wouldn't lie to you about a thing like that, would I?... Are you listening to me? It makes children detonate explosives... that's why flies carry communications from outer space" rants a conspiracy theory-crazed and rather peeved Home Counties female whilst a presumably Tennants Extra-slaughtered tramp rants Scottishly over the top about fucknosewotbollocks. Prolapse revel in a frenziedly nervous pop music which assaults the brain on 418 levels at once, bombarding the poor bastard listener with paranoid whispers and caustic little side-sniggers that'll probably prod the more sensitive of you over the edge into suicidal depression.

Everybody hates you, the government have bugged your dental fillings and all of Madonna's lyrics are aimed at you personally (especially where she sings, "Go get an axe and kill Bis and I'll shag you/Honest I will" on 'Material Girl'). Prolapse are the sound of your 19th nervous breakdown happening simultaneously with numbers one to 18. Have you ever wondered what the 'voices' that Mark Chapman allegedly heard before he went and de-Beatled The Dakota building sounded like? They sounded like Prolapse. Imagine the Trainspotting 'choose' monologue crossed with the deranged purple-ink diary scribblings of a public schoolgirl psycho-killer done but days before she liberates the Bren from the school armoury and turns the fifth-form gymkhana into the beach at Gallipoli. I wonder if you can.

If all the poxy little dimwit indie bands that clutter up this planet (wasting our diminishing supplies of oxygen, fresh water and fossil fuel) were but one-tenth as radical, perverse, demented, witty, sassy or sexy as Prolapse then we ­ the indie community ­ would have every right to look down our pert but blackhead-riddled little noses at the coke-crazed and corporate hosepipe sucking clown-whores of Proper Pop. But they're not, are they? Bands as whacked to fuck as Prolapse are as rare as wings on dogs. Give them all your money and drugs and attempt to emulate the spirit of their genius, you SCUM! This is an order. Over and out.

Stevie Chick, NME


    A WELCOME return for one of Britain's more demented musical set-ups. Sounds like Stereolab playing mini-golf with Arab Strap. Probably. Drew Barrymore's favourite group. Apparently.
- "really strange and really appealing. The soft, hazy female vocals against the really strong 'trainspotting'-style voice, it's got a lot going for it; it sounds like real old style indie music. It'll be nice to separate the vocals so you can hear what they are both saying. But it works, it's your classic John Peel, it's a goer. Prolapse, great name, too."

Comments by Graeme Le Saux, Melody Maker