Like a cross between Richard Hell and the Voidoids** and a dandified rent boy, Meat For a Dark Day’s ‘Vanity Unfair’ mixes extremely explicit-sounding guitar lines with gleefully punk vocals and very dumb-sounding beats to make an idiot-punk/black leather-rock song with a gratifyingly instant appeal. It’s under two minutes long, but what it lacks in duration it makes up for with an exaggerated swagger which allows its soundwaves to take up about five times as much space as they actually require. It’s a puffed-up blaggard of a song: preposterous, simplistic and quite magnificent fun.
And on the b-side ‘Three Mallards’, a gentle acoustic lost-love ballad with echoey vocals and plenty of soul, proves that MFADD don’t need to pander to the instant gratification Ramones-rock camp – they just wanted to. And why the fuck not, indeed? More soon, please...
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7's Score