Flesh Tetris – Wrong Kind Of Adults

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The long-awaited début album by London’s Flesh Tetris, Wrong Kind Of Adults, is finally here. And Flesh Tetris is really quite a name, isn’t it? Echoes of Cronenbergian erotica funnelled through retro videogaming, an ambience which translates directly to their music.

Although Flesh Tetris contains half of The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing, any similarity is entirely coincidental. Flesh Tetris’s take on anachronism is pretty much the exact other way around. It’s the retro-futurism of the 1980s, funnelling New Wave, punk and techno into something thoroughly new that sounds somehow old. Remember Bradley, from 2000AD? Flesh Tetris is the kind of band I could imagine him getting into. In fact, the whole endeavour has something of 1980s British comics to it — Deadline, 2000AD, that kind of thing.

They’ve got a bit of the lo-fi electro charm of Alien Sex Fiend, but with all the morbidity painted over in primary colours and silly string. The cross-gender dual vocal onslaught at times has the feel of a less angry Atari Teenage Riot jamming with Chicks On Speed, but these comparisons can only go so far, as Flesh Tetris are very much their own thing.

The whole album’s pretty damn gleeful, from the pre- and post-apocalypticism of “Panic Buy” and “Glass-Bottomed Boat” to the gloriously-titled “Jailbait Sex Pest Infestation” (actually about cockroaches), the latter of which I could almost imagine actually being on Top Of The Pops (preferably an episode not presented by a horrific abusive monster) in an alternate 1985, all post-punk funk and staccato vocals.

Wait, did I say ALL the morbidity painted over in primary colours? “Landfill Cindy”, as you’d imagine, is pretty damn dark, but, well, still way more fun than it probably should be. “Partners In Crime”‘s the age-old tale of boy meets girl and embarks on a killing spree, while my personal favourite is “Cat Box Journey”, a tale of a trip to the vet’s and feline revenge. I could imagine it having been written by pretty much any ACTUAL cat I’ve ever met, and that’s saying something.

Wrong Kind Of Adults is simultaneously charming and slightly threatening. With a shitload of very well-received live shows under their belts, Flesh Tetris have arrived, and the future of the ’80s will never be the same again.

-Justin Farrington-