Album of the Week: Dead Boy Robotics – Dead Boy Robotics
Unlike Monday’s joint Album of the Week winners, Dead Boy Robotics have been good to their word as to when their debut full length would be released. And like Kochka, they’ve also already featured on these pages, mere weeks ago, in truth.
We’ll not dwell a huge amount on their bio as little has changed in the world of Dead Boy Robotics since our first encounter. But it is worth noting once again the presence of Lady North sticksman Paul Bannon on the record, surely one of the country’s most exciting drummers.
His addition to songs like As Children We Fear the Dark Pt 1 and Ever elevate them from just ‘good’ to ‘very, very good indeed’. But to purely focus on Bannon would be doing a massive disservice to the band’s founding members Gregor McMillan and Mike Bryant.
This is an intriguing mash-up of styles. A key reference point could perhaps be Depeche Mode without the creepy S&M references. And we’re talking about Depeche Mode when they were half-decent here which mercifully excludes anything after Ultra and arguably a lot that came before it too….. Anyway, we digress, possibly distracted by the thought of a middle-aged man in a gimp suit. Nine Inch Nails are another act that springs to mind, bearing in mind their reliance on guitars reduced massively in their final stages.
Twin vocals, distinctly Scottish and plenty of synth noodling ensure that these songs can assume their own identity. We can’t think of anything else currently playing in Scottish music that resembles Dead Boy Robotics – not everyone sticks slavishly to the guitar/bass/drums template but a synth and drum combo with vaguely spooky vocals feels particularly original to these ears and we’re willing to bet that they aren’t remotely influenced by the aforementioned acts… they’re just unfortunate enough to encounter a blogger old enough to remember buying Pretty Hate Machine on tape.
So then – Dead Boy Robotics. No gimp suits, just fine, original tunes for keyboards pounded hard and drums pounded even harder.
We spoke to Gregor and Mike this week.
Amazing – you got your album out exactly when you promised. How did it feel to, ah, ‘birth’ it, so to speak?
Gregor McMillan: It’s really satisfying putting the album out after so much love, time and hard work went into creating it. The past few months leading up to the release have been really hectic with getting everything ready and in place, so now, with a sigh of relief, we can sit back and let it be free. Having completed the album almost a year ago, releasing it feels like a huge weight lifted off our shoulders, allowing us to move forward and start writing new material.
Mike Bryant: It felt amazing and kind of cleansing in a way. As we had been holding onto the finished article for an entire year before releasing it, I began to doubt certain things. I started to think ‘is the record really good enough?’, ‘Should we have changed certain bits?’, ‘Is anyone else going to actually give a fuck about the album?’. In the end it has been massively worth it and we’re all extremely proud of what we have created.
How do you feel about the reception the record’s been given?
GM: The reviews we’ve had so far have all been excellent. Obviously the music we make isn’t for everyone so it’s great that people are getting it and genuinely liking the album.
MB: It’s been better than I could have ever imagined. From the beginning I knew that it was never going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but since its release, it has been extremely well received from a pretty wide audience.
What inspired the feel of the record?
GM: There’s a definite atmospheric night-time feel to the record, which could be owed to our practice room having no windows and being covered in fairy lights. It could also been due to the three months spent at Tape mixing the album with producer Stephen Watkins. We got by on a diet of on coffee and insomnia.
MB: As a band, our inspiration is really varied. Science Fiction soundtracks, especially Vangelis’ Blade Runner OST inspired the synth sounds. Tape has amazing array of vintage synths that allowed us to do this. We were also listening to a lot of 80s pop which comes across in the drum sounds, making the record feel very individual and different.
Can we expect to see more live shows soon?
GM: We have our Glasgow launch show at Pivo Pivo on Sunday 11th December, then in January we’re playing Limbo at The Voodoo Rooms and have a show in Inverness.
MB: After the Inverness show in January our diary is very much open. If anyone wants to help us out sort a European tour that would be magic!
Here’s a short film about early sessions for the album!
