SARCASM 'Creeping Life'

SARCASM's final offering is the much-needed shot in the arm you don’t even have to queue for. Sonically their six-track EP is a potent mix of the ignorant anarcho clatter and arch post(-graduate) punk you already love them for, but moreso. Picture UK DECAY squatting the Barbican. Still eschewing distortion for a truly inspired use of phase, the cavernous production (another Falco joint) will leave you staring at a city trader until he switches carriages. Whether it's echo-laden pronouncements on our worst instincts for techno addiction ("Digital Colony") or odes to modernist artists Paul Nash ("Marsh Personage") each track is as desperate as it is restrained by the same conditions. Heavily reminiscent of Fallout and the more cerebral end of UK82, mercilessly taut and lyrically about as obtuse as you’d hope from punk songs about rare varieties of lichen. Some guy once said something about the need for pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will in abject times, and this band amply proved the evergreen joy to be had in being a smart arse. Bury ‘Creeping Life’ under the rubble of the A3030 at Stonehenge when they start tunneling because this is one for the well-groomed future druids. Justified and ancient, ‘Creeping Life’ absolutely goes. (Bryony Beynon)