Here’s another tasty treat from those excellent Upset The Rhythm peeps. Dark World is a twenty-two track exposé of Normil Hawaiians’ early verve, showcasing a formative pool of edgy punk / post-new wave that would finally mutate / mature into the arty haemorrhage that was their debut More Wealth Than Money and beyond.
Back then things were quite fluid, sponge-like, a many-tentacled beast collected here that strikes hot from the offing. The quality of vision is strong and defiant, its songs pulsate with purpose, poetically pummelling.
The years between 1979 and 1981 were a fertile playground for a lot of bands and these Hawaiian folk seemed to be raiding the toy box with invention and intrigue, turning the inside out with thirsty guitars and raw vocals, spikey recoil giving out rough justice and the occasional lifestyle advice.
The Indie Chart potential of their “Beat Goes On” hand-grenades your head with satisfying hooks, speared on taking no shit polemics. The female vocals that intersect, spicing things up a treat on that drum-driven tidal wave of “Coincidence”; the superb proto-riot-girrl energy of “I Wanna”; and there’s “Ventilation” that sounds like an undiscovered Slits track sycamore-thrown on a Felt-like sunshine. In amongst this are glimpses of what the band would become, breaking though in guitar-tangled cut-up and shouty urgency. Then there’s the absolute genius of the four Peel Session tracks that earmarks that evolution in the weirded-out vegetation love of “Uncle Green Genes” and the extra meat on the bone version of “The Beat Goes On”.Elsewhere, the straight-up punkish / dub pillage of “Levels Of Water” gives me PiL-esque quivers and fret-fuckery that would have brought a blush to Rowland S Howard’s cheeks. Then there’s “Sang Sang”, taking in the odd cross-pollination of Bertie Marshall, a sardonic singer whose Exhibit LP will be hitting the streets later this month, here roasting the goods over skipple-jacked divisions and loose-limbed Keith Jarrett-like stabs.
It amazing now this still packs plenty of punch, sweet’n’sour dynamics that feel disturbingly fresh, limbering round the ugliness that still chokes good intentions. “Still Obedient”’s glitter-kiltered frustrations flying against blind acceptance, sniping at all those nodding dogs. The double-drum diorama of “The Return”, a xeroxed ransom all Rema Rema rolled as its poetic pout pins back the indifference, basking in the flowery futility of the underdog.
The snared dub of “Should You Forget”, shuttling like an abused “Kings Of The Wild Frontier”, a wrong that sounds so right meshing into a war chant for the introspective in us all. The frayed and fiery perspectives of “Exhibit” are an internal struggle intoxicated on sickle-backed scuffle and rhythmic wreckage, all ending on the spoken-word Jackanory-like nonsense that is “In Buttered Pieces”.Dark World is a vital snapshot from yesteryear catapulted into today, a compass for kicking against all strangleholds.
-Michael Rodham-Heaps-
