OxfordBands.com

Beaver Fuel is a band which many approach with trepidation, largely because the various members are always telling anyone who will listen how shambolic, unlistenable and unpopular they are. This doesn’t stop them gigging their socks off, often stepping into the breach when sappy out-of-towners fail to show, the payoff being that they have earned a reputation as a solid, tight, progressive punk act almost in spite of themselves (they played the Oxford Punt last May, so they have at least one important admirer in town).

Their latest EP, ‘This Allusion’ has plenty of good moments on it, even if the results are a bit uneven. Opener ‘Flopsy’ll be Toast!’, for example, has a rather soulful, bluesy lead guitar intro (it reminds me a little of The Guess Who?), before breaking into a more angular rise-and-fall figure, over which Leigh Alexander sardonically quarter-sings a lyric-as-character-assassination relating to some vacuous ex-girlfriend (or ‘hormonal cyclone’ as he nastily puts it). It’s a bit of a misfire to be honest: the barbs are too esoteric and the vocals are pretty approximate-best just listen to the guitar playing.

More focussed is the self-explanatory ‘Eurovision Political Favour Contest’. Of course, this institution (the gay equivalent of the FA Cup Final) is the softest of soft targets, and the joke has worn thin even for Sir Terry Wogan, but Beaver Fuel unexpectedly squeeze a couple of laughs out of it: think Tom Lehrer fronting Green Day:

“When it’s our turn to award the points, it’s musical merit alone/

No allies, no solidarity, we’re out here on our own/

So maybe we’re just keeping score to see if anyone likes us at all”

I don’t know about you, but I find the evocation of the spirit of Dunkirk allied with that of Millwall FC rather touching as well as amusing. And its great punk rock.

Finishing off, we have the Eric Cartmanesque ‘F*** You, I’ve got Tourettes’, which is as puerile and offensive as it sounds. And quite funny, if you’re in that sort of mood. The song proper is negligible musically, but the instrumental riffing at the end sounds like it could bear the weight of a more elevated subject-maybe they should lease it out to Rage Against the Machine or something.

So, ‘This Allusion’ represents Beaver Fuel in pretty good form. They are no longer a joke band, but are confident enough in themselves to make jokes, some of which actually get off the runway. Although as a frontman Alexander is more Henny Youngman than Henry Rawlins, his puzzled punk shtick is quite fresh: Frank Zappa once asked if humour belonged in music. At their best, Beaver Fuel show that wit can belong in punk.

Beaver Fuel Myspace

By Colin MacKinnon.

This EP sets itself up as a cheap-and-nasty shocker. The cover art hasn’t gained much from printing over being doodled straight onto paper using a biro; the back of the CD also reassures me that having been “mutilated and massacred” by the band, the final musical “turd polishing” happened at Lovegrove Towers. Goodo. As for the song titles, while‘Belgian Surprise’ may conjure up some notion of good taste, the final title, ‘I wanna live in your buttcrack‘ leaves a rather different arrière goût.

However, the music itself is as humdrum as it gets. Plodding rock numbers with a slight 80-s vibe, grungy rhythm guitar, teach-yourself drum parts, semi-spoken tuneless vocals followed by relatively competent noodling. Overall, nothing too taxing, and thus the first three songs pass by relatively harmlessly.

So onto the meat of the matter.

Songs involving references to bums have quite an impressive pedigree. From the superior posteriors of Spinal Tap’s ‘Big Bottom’ (“talkin’ ‘bout mud-flaps, my girl’s got ‘em”) right the way down to Joan of Arse and Frank Zappa’s ‘Illinois Enema Bandit’, bums have been used in myriad ways, to which we can now add living up one.

Far from causing a stir, the song’s regularity, its swift oom-pah lilt, the slight twinge of West Country in Leigh Alexander’s vocals and the uncomplicated joviality with which he is prepared to live up someone’s anus, at most serve to conjure up images of a mildly lecherous rustic bumpkin failing to chat up the local serving-wench. While the musicianship is very passable, especially for a semi-live EP, the song does not surpass pub rock, nor does the level of wit exceed the likes of: “I wanna live in your butt-crack, it looks so warm and snug, if I were to die they could bury me as my grave would already be dug…” As much as I wanted to like it, it doesn’t really cut the mud.

And in answer to the title question: no, as a matter of fact this EP does not remind me in any way of kidney beans. Although it does remind me of Captain Beefheart’s ‘Big Eyed Beans From Venus’, in which he states, “men should get out their wallets and women their purses, as a man or a woman without a big eyed bean from Venus is the worstest of curses”. But a man or a woman without this EP is no worse off, really.

Beaver Fuel Myspace

By B.M.

Local indie punk types Beaver Fuel launch their latest EP, ‘Doesn’t This Remind you of Kidney Beans?’ at the Bullingdon, Cowley Road on Good Friday (21 March) with support from comedic heavy rockers Beelzebozo and country folk maverick Faceometer. Doors are 8.00p.m and cover is £4.