Neurotic Fiction began as a fun recording project amongst friends, and these casual beginnings still have an important influence on a band that continue to grow in stature. The South West-based band create a lovely blend of sunny indie pop and shadowy post-punk, and despite writing songs about the anxieties of contemporary culture, steadfastly refused to take themselves too seriously.
Pulp Music is Neurotic Fiction’s debut album, a record that sees the band take the angular, jerky raw ingredients of 80s post-punk and somehow use them to create infectious pop songs. All that is delivered with an unselfconscious smirk, founded on the idea that, as the title suggests, there’s joy to be found in fun and meaningless art.
Although, upon pressing play, you can’t help but think Neurotic Fiction might be doing themselves a disservice. Clearly a lot of care and attention went into the album, and the hard work in the studio with John Hannon of No Recording has paid off beautifully. Opener ‘Social Animal’ is a great example of the Neurotic Fiction blend of old and new, a patchwork of influences that results in something fresh and distinctive. Lead single ‘Collateral’ is a rush of poppy post-punk goodness, the band wearing their Blondie and the B-52’s influences like badges of honour. Manic drums and guitar are joined by yelled backing vocals, proof that even the catchiest songs on Pulp Music are powered with a turbo-charged punk energy.
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=134391634 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=2695918318]
Neurotic Fiction have gone through several line-up changes since they began. Both Rosey Brown and Rosie Smith (of Oh Peas) have fronted the band in the past, and probably deserve credit for having a hand in creating some of these songs. But that role is now held by Jessie Pfundner, who brings the added bonus of synths too. Vocals are also provided by guitarist Livi Sinclair and bassist Rory Matthews, while Sean Langdon-Dark provides percussion
There’s a feeling of restraint on ‘Generals’, a song that first appeared as part of Art Is Hard‘s Pin Pal series, that is until around the halfway mark where it hits a little eddy of dynamism, sweeping itself away with razor sharp guitar and stomping percussion. ‘Loose End’ feels light and catchy, but still has those gritty punk undertones, Pfunder’s vocals soft but sardonic, Matthews shouting the track’s title over and over in frustrated yelps during the chorus, signs that no matter how fun the music sounds, all is not well with the world.
“They’re pulling the rug out from under us
And when we’re on the ground they don’t help us up
They tell us we don’t work nearly hard enough
And they know what they’re doing, and they cut and cut
A gulf opens and it weakens our resolve
We watch as what we hold dissolves
Keep a handle, try to keep a focus
While our limbs are being severed from us”
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=134391634 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=2979479247]
The melodic ‘Blue Slush’ transitions smoothly into ‘Meaning of Lyf’, a lovely garage pop song where the guitar gets almost surfy. The other song from the Art is Hard single, ‘Mediator’ is another slice of jangly and melodic post-punk, which we previously labelled as existing between “between Buzzcocks-style punk and Brit jangle pop,” before the title track gallops to a close, ending in a celebratory shout-along finale.
And celebration is the song’s overriding theme, although not by any conventional standards. There’s a gently triumphant feel to the way that Neurotic Fiction, even in their most punk moments, sidestep nihilism in favour of a sense of inclusive acceptance, and make it perfectly clear they know they’re unlikely to change the world. As Sinclair tells Burn After Writing, ‘Pulp Music’ is a song about “how, by throwing away ambition and delighting in making low-brow, disposable art, it’s possible to find a unique sense of fulfilment.”
Pulp Music is an album content to do its own thing, to revel in its own ephemerality and to confront the weird world we live in with a sense of sly humour. By embracing the throwaway nature of pop music, Neurotic Fiction forgo society’s relentless and destructive sense of ambition, instead celebrating what they describe as “the strange comfort in admitting we may never really amount to anything.” As Sinclair continues in the Burn After Writing feature, “I guess the record concludes that life has to be bearable, and in order for it to be bearable traditional notions of success have to be rejected, that it’s necessary to indulge in purposelessness and meaninglessness at times.”
Pulp Music will be released on the 16th of November, and you can order it now via Specialist Subject Records or the Neurotic Fiction Bandcamp page.
Design and layout by Caio Wheelhouse