The debut album by Bristol’s Phoxjaw, Royal Swan, came a close second on this List in 2020, and if I was writing my
2020 List again today, I suspect it’d top it. I’ve had to wait a long while for
this follow up: it was originally due in autumn 2022 after a couple of
mouthwatering preview tracks that summer. But then just before release Daniel
Garland was – it turned out falsely – accused of some pretty serious crimes on
social media. The label pulled the record and almost all of the band’s
promotional and live bookings were axed overnight. After months, and, eventually,
retractions, a raft of apologies, and some substantial compensation paid to
Garland, we finally got notverynicecream in late May. This is not the
place to engage with the extremely difficult balance to be struck between
ensuring victims are always believed when they speak out and the essentialness
of presumed innocence until proven guilt, but the fact that Phoxjaw are
still dogged by recurring falsehoods in cyberspace speaks to the dangers of
cancel culture. Anyway… notverynicecream turned out to be a weird
twisting metal record that – surprise! – isn’t always a metal record at all,
and which repeatedly shows its bare bum to convention and confounds
expectations. While notverynicecream is perhaps less consistent than Royal Swan (especially in its final third), its best moments are better than
anything on its predecessor. It’s certainly a more original and ambitious
record, chucking all kinds of things into the mix and worrying little about whether
all of it necessarily works. For all its weirdness, though, there’s a through
line of surprisingly catchy choruses on show. There are also some punishing
riffs, screamo howls, Vampire Weekend-style white-boy reggae, and a big helping
of discordant trumpets. Lyrically, the record swings from the disturbed to the
very, very silly, which is disarming even after multiple listens. Although far from a direct comparator, the band that notverynicecream calls to my
mind most is System of a Down, and especially their freewheeling 1998 debut. Phoxjaw have the same lack of caution and a comparable idiosyncrasy.
That idiosyncrasy means this record will definitely not be everyone’s cup of
tea. But you never know: why not
try it? notverynicecream is unlike any other record this (or any) year –
it makes Haken’s Fauna seem decidedly middle of the road, for example – and that fact alone means it is surely worth a spin.