Stuffed Alive is a 7-track EP from Perth four piece Mental Powers. It’s a rough and ready collection of bedroom recordings and sexed up live tunes, sonic scribbles that tangent off into various directions that recalls everything from the dirty dirge of garage rock to the more precise and intricate maths rock. It’s loose, occasionally honky, poorly recorded and very raw. But it’s highly creative. No two songs sound the same. There’s a real DIY feel, much of it sounds like it was recorded live. Mistakes stay in, the wailing isn’t actually on mic, half the time it sounds improvised, but who knows? It doesn’t matter it’s their sound, their feel. The highlight is Jhek, a highly repetitive, almost shoegaze/ low-key krautrock tune which uses incredibly hypnotic low-end rumbles to lull the listener before descending into a free jazz free for all. Purposely rough and raw, it’s difficult to find much coherency here, rather this EP feels like a collection of interesting ideas and potential directions, almost a taster for the bands potential.
Bob Baker Fish
