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the beat up how shit are we
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by Gen Williams
The press release waxes lyrical about the odour of The Beat Up's "stinking" punk rock attitude. Attitude is easy to conjure. Where's the goods, the motive, the indignation and fury and arrogance to prompt all this? Punk, surely, was about crashing through boundaries and taboos, offending and innovating, and stapling yourself brashly on the map.

'All Messed Up' whizzes along at a jaunty, roadworthy pace, but every borrowed chord identifies it as small fry. A love of the Rolling Stones is evident in the devil-may-care guitars and the Jagger-esque vocals but, being short of the prowling, animalistic voodoo charm of the Stones at their most dangerous, it's less Stones, more Jet. The most enjoyable bit is the breakdown near the end, where they strip off all the superfluous shit that sounded tinny anyway and let the guitars cock a malignant, beckoning finger in our direction.

The Beatings - sorry, the Beat Up - have been kicking around for a couple of years now. As an early statement of intent, this wouldn't be bad at all - but after two years as a unit you'd think they'd have carved out a more definite identity for themselves. For a taste of a Kevin Shields-produced album, DiS really expects more. Time to pull your socks up, boys.

  • The Beat Up 4 / 10
Words: Gen Williams

The Beat Up - All Messed Up

Damn Right! This is shat!

The Beat Up - All Messed Up

Sounds like they haven't improved since they were The Beatings, then.

Re: The Beat Up - All Messed Up

Bugger. was hoping the kevin shields influence would kick em up the arse and make summat good... but then they did pioneer the trucker cap according to nme, so i shouldn't have had such high hopes.

The Beat Up - All Messed Up

I've seen them live twice, and twice I have walked away disappointed. I'm sure they're very nice guys n all, but having 'Thz z fer -incoherent drivel- reladed tuh hm' slurred into a microphone preceeding loud, tinny noise with timing worse than many school bands I know, I remain thoroughly unconvinced.

The Beat Up - All Messed Up

I really want/wanted to like the Beatings/Beat up since I bought bad feeling...it was a good single, and stood out for me amongst the garage bandwagonjumpers of a couple of years ago...Kevin Shields was mistake- good producer, but what a crappy track record in terms of productivity. Even the band and their management must have been able to see that they were part of a movement, and as such they ought to get a move on and do an album. Two years overdue....pity

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