Blacklist

I have to imagine the boys in Blacklist listened to a lot of Echo & The Bunnymen, Comsat Angels and Love & Rockets when they were growing up. That’s not a slight, as clearly one could do far worse in one’s musical upbringing. But there’s a clear ancestral line to those masters of the darker side of post-punk to be found in this quartet’s musical output. At least based on their first single, ‘Fight of the Demoiselles’. The reference is apparently to one of Picasso’s infamous works, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. At least I think it is. Maybe I’m reading into it.

Even though the band might enjoy the gloomier side of life, they manage to avoid typical goth cliche by merging gloom with uplifting anthems anchored by melodic lead guitar that would do Will Sergeant proud. They clearly aren’t afraid of a little pop. Nor do they shy away from politics, however vague the allusions might be. Indeed, when he sings of ‘iron curtains’ and ‘empires falling’, it could just as easily be about a difficult or failed relationship as about a modern political power.

Bottom line – this sounds good to my ears. It’s difficult to resist that guitar that sounds as though it’s straight out of U2’s early heyday. Their debut, Midnight of the Century (another reference, this time to a novel by Russian revolutionary Victor Serge) is out now on Weird Records, and can be ordered directly from the label here.

Blacklist – Fight of the Demoiselles
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TOUR DATES:
August 6 – Mercury Lounge – NYC – w/ The Boxer Rebellion
August 7 – DC9 – Washington DC
August 8 – Raven Lounge – Philadelphia

Tags: blacklist