Sarcasm's final offering is the much-needed shot in the arm you don’t even have to queue for. Sonically their six-track EP is a potent mix of the ignorant anarcho clatter and arch post(-graduate) punk you already love them for, but moreso. Picture UK DECAY squatting the Barbican. Still eschewing distortion for a truly inspired use of phase, the cavernous production (another Falco joint) will leave you staring at a city trader until he switches carriages. Whether it's echo-laden pronouncements on our worst instincts for techno addiction (‘Digital Colony’) or odes to modernist artists Paul Nash (‘Marsh Personage’) each track is as desperate as it is restrained by the same conditions. Heavily reminiscent of FALLOUT and the more cerebral end of UK82, mercilessly taut and lyrically about as obtuse as you’d hope from punk songs about rare varieties of lichen. Some guy once said something about the need for pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will in abject times, and this band amply proved the evergreen joy to be had in being a smart arse. Bury ‘Creeping Life’ under the rubble of the A3030 at Stonehenge when they start tunnelling, because this is one for the well-groomed future druids. Justified and ancient, ‘Creeping Life’ absolutely goes. (Bryony Beynon)Our take: London’s Sarcasm follow up their debut 7” from four years ago, Malarial Bog, with this 6-track EP. Sarcasm is arty as fuck, drawing on the tradition of bands like Wire, Magazine, and Gang of Four who saw punk rock through the prism of intellectual and art culture. I hate when music comes off as pretentious, but Sarcasm just sound like what they are: smart people who like smart punk rock. The lyrics wouldn’t be out of place in a graduate-level poetry workshop. There’s a consistent, well-developed voice and themes that carry across several songs (as well as the album’s artwork), most obviously imagery related to wetlands, particularly peat bogs. Why bogs? I don’t know… I don’t think it’s as simple as a metaphor or an allegory, more an enigmatic symbol. As for the music, it’s minimal, restrained, and as subtly evocative as the words, not unlike the best music from the bands I mentioned above. I could see someone who just wants to rock hating this, but I can hang with Sarcasm’s vibe.
