*The Once Over Twice. *Remember that name. Say it out loud. Meditate on it. *The Once Over Twice. *Write it on a post-it note and stick it on the fridge, on the bathroom mirror, over the TV. Do it NOW. And don’t stop ‘til I tell you to. Because the next time you find yourself browsing the racks in HMV you will pick this up. You will listen to it every day. You won’t be able to stop yourself, not because I’m subtly hypnotising you with my words – though that would be pretty cool – but because with their debut album they have easily made the most exciting, the most viciously infectious album you'll buy this year. Bar none.
Following on from their _‘Strikes And Gutters’ _EP on Org Records last year this is a steaming, hyperactive ball of post-hardcore energy where every instrument is scrambling for your attention, each barbed melody coming at every angle, burrowing under and over each other in a desperate attempt to make itself heard. In fact, as soon as the hollowed, grating guitar scrum welcomes you into their world the album bursts into a feverishly intense mix of furious guitar strummings, itchy rhythms and explosive drumming, vocalist Darren only accentuating this urgency with a style that jostles between the exasperations of *David Yow *and the reserved ness of latter-day **Ian Mackaye.
Lyrically he appears to illustrate the futility of everyday existence if motivation and purpose is lost, voicing on ‘Whistlestop On The Permafrost’, “Lose your subtext, lose your motives. So what would you do in my situation? Put it all down to fate and put your feet up? I prefer to take a riddle and decipher on the terms I agree.” Indeed it seems this is a band at odds with societal complacency; a band preferring to affect real change rather than nestling amongst those being ushered through the post-teen turnpike without any real sense of direction. Forget Sunday morning T4; destroy _Heat _magazine and please, someone send a crippling virus to My Space’s server. Because this is what young people need to hear.
Musically TOOT share a common bond with the creative mindset of the modern DC punk scene whilst integrating a frantic, wholly disparate take of their own that is both proficient and accessible, yet pumps with a raw, primal energy that evades the bland and instead makes this such a captivating listen from start to finish. In fact, it’s going to take a heck of a long time before I put this CD back in its case.
So, for those at the back, they are The Once Over Twice. And you are going to love them.
-
10Mat Hocking's Score