Sons and Daughters
The Repulsion Box
(Domino)
The new album from Glaswegian electric folk-punk quartet Sons and Daughters feels like it should come with a warning. Not the parental advisory sticker ubiquitous on hip-hop releases, but more the kind you find on rollercoasters advising pregnant women and those with a heart condition against climbing aboard.
From the first frenzied strums of opener Medicine, it seems as if you've been thrown headlong into the middle of some dark and unrelenting bacchanalian folk dance, with the barn doors tightly bolted. It's the kind of album Nick Cave, the Pixies and the White Stripes might collectively knock out were they ever to find themselves on a whiskey and amphetamine binge.
Vocal duties fall to Adele Bethel and Scott Paterson, both of whom display a thick brogue that dispels any doubts about their country of origin, while their lyrics bubble with a sinister intensity perfectly suited to the throbbing drum beats and delirious bursts of guitar.