There are a couple of strands knotted together on ‘Welcome The Worms’, Bleached’s second full length. On one side you have its disaffected drifting through a baked Los Angeles. On the other, you have a gloriously gritty take on power-pop that lands somewhere around, pardon the phrase, post-Go-Go’s.
On several occasions they cross the streams and, rather than reducing the landscape around them to rubble, find a sort of uneasy balance. Desolate Town and I’m All Over The Place (Mystic Mama) are prime examples, with swampy guitars almost strangling some budding melodies.
At the top end of the record are a trio of songs happy to scarf down a handful of pills and wander through streets populated by blank stares. Keep On Keepin’ On, Trying To Lose Myself Again and Sleepwalking are bitter missives that keep the fuzz coming, spurred on by Jennifer Clavin trying to navigate the end of a broken relationship with drink and drugs. “I been sleeping around this hungry town, trying to find myself again,” she sings on track two. “I been fucking high every night, trying to lose myself again.”
These songs also set the table for the record’s surprisingly soft centre, though, and once the chunky power chords and rhythmic stomp of Wednesday Night Melody kick in, ‘Welcome The Worms’ changes pace.
At this juncture, melody becomes job number one, with further investigations into the doomed romance of LA melded to the most effective hooks Bleached have penned. “Come on boy, dry your eyes,” Clavin sings. “It’s good to feel just a little alive.”
Wasted On You conflates love and narcotics into a garage-pop gem, with Chemical Air taking another spin around California and bursting into life at its midpoint rather than hitting a dead end. Sour Candy, meanwhile, lands somewhere between Teenage Kicks and straight up new wave pop, its infectious chorus layered with keys and a sentiment that cuts straight through the decoration: “I been giving in, into giving up.”
‘Welcome The Worms’ is an uneven album that nevertheless possesses louche, candid charm by the bucketload. Bleached have stumbled out of the door in search of self destruction and instead channelled the impulse into some real pop treasures.
Bleached Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Sun May 08 2016 - LONDON Moth Club
Tue May 17 2016 - MANCHESTER Gullivers
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