The Eagulls

I've been spending some time listening to the eponymous British debut record by the post-punk revival band The Eagulls, and I like it quite a bit. Their sound is reminiscent of early-80s bands like The Buzzcocks and Feelies, with terrific hooks, snarling guitars, and a pounding rhythm section.

They are also a bit mysterious. There are no band credits on the album, no writer information, no lyric sheet. The vocals sound as if they were recorded under the bridge of the photo on the inside--full or reverb and completely unintelligible. I found some of them online, and they are smart and, being that the band is from Leeds, England, full of despair.

An example is from "Amber Veins:"

"Possessions pawned
Prickles of thorns
Plucked open
Pains false and forsworn
Forgetting all for
For what you take."

Or from the charmingly titled "Fester Blister":

"Find open pores
Eating up dirt, gathering gleet
Slowly they'll rot, slowly they'll weep
Trap all the nerves
Ensure it's cursed as it secretes
Retching won't stop, watch it turn green."

The music itself is mostly in a minor key, but at times is rather peppy. Most of the time, though, it has a panicky urgency. Stereogum describes it as "a proud piece of jittery brutality," and I think that sums it up perfectly. A track called "Soulless Youth" opens with loud alarms, like the countdown to a self-destructing spaceship, or perhaps the alarm sounded when someone is escaping from some futuristic death camp.

As to why they named themselves a homonym of one of those most loathed (by punks, at least) bands of the '70s, I imagine it's a joke, but it will make it hard to ask for them vocally. "You want the new record by the Eagles? They broke up a long time ago." "No, the Eagulls!"