Useless Coordinates

On their debut full-length Useless Coordinates, London-via-Leeds trio Drahla take post-punk’s characteristic noisiness and find a way to make it even harsher. The strained drum roll that opens the album serves as a terse processional. There is an undoubted artsy feel to Useless Coordinates, but there is also a sense of joy, of connection and liberation as they knowingly use what has gone before (Wire are an obvious influence) whilst adding something distinctive enough to stand out from the crowd.

Like: Talking Heads, Sonic Youth, Omni, Wire, Gang of Four

FCC Clean

Play: 1, 3, 4, 8

1.Gilded Cloud (3:33) Pointed bristly stop/start guitar style favoured by post-punks of the early 1908s
2.Serenity (2:21) Straightforward rock’n’roll bawler right out of the top drawer.
3.Pyramid Estate (1:52) Phenomenal slabs of post-punk joy, with one beautifully unlistenable sax.
4.Stimulus For Living (3:05) Post Punk with the sax adding some wonderful textural treatments.
5.React/Revolt (4:58) Noisy, brooding, sprawling and frenetic all at once.
6.Primitive Rhythm (1:20) Brilliant and brief cacophonous pop music.
7.Serotonin Level (3:32) High-strung cedes to an ambient outro, a post punk beauty.
8.Twelve Divisions of the Day (3:14) Oddball music into the higher octave of great brain synapse-snapping catchy music.
9.Unwound (2:37) Flat but very artrock-by-numbers.
10.Invisible Sex (2:54) Sounds like prime-era Pavement with its skewed and discordant guitars wreaking havoc.