The Recusants

The recusants ‘the dane’ (rag picker). Bit of a grower this one and something which we here must admit to being mightily fond of. the Recusants may well be one of those bands worthy of stencilling on your art folders, hand bags, jackets, hands, arms, foreheads and whatever other daily essential accessories and / or body parts you bright young things dabble and daub upon these days. A quartet from London who in their short lifespan have thus far self released an ultra limited calling cards entitled ’skulls’ last year - a copy of we fear sleepless nights a suffering until one is safely ensconced in our mits - to which this natty little twin set by the name ’the dane’ follows in hot pursuit. Blessed with the kind of swimming against the tide petulance that you suspect would have immediately endeared them to the late and much missed Mr Peel, the Recusants admiringly set their stall so far away from the inevitable and obvious chasing the moment indie crowd that you suspect them to be casually waving various hand gestures and the occasional disapprovingly snarl from across the tracks. Now we here don’t pretend to push the view that this lot have in some way invented the wheel because quite frankly they haven’t, however what they have done is to trace a rather nifty path that navigates though the early 80’s backwaters of a resolutely disenfranchised Thatcherite era northern indie sound for ’the dane’ - once cleared of its initial haze whereby it sounds not unlike two separate bands both reading and playing from opposing and differing song sheets - jabs, jars and drives to a disconsolate greyness that embraces - or so it would seem - an aural consciousness more becoming of Ellery Bop, Wild Swans, Cherry Boys or a debuting Wah variation before that is splintering into action and firing up like a youthful Wedding Present in a face off with a pre fame James and beset in a blaze of needle picking charging over the hill strum-tastic urgency - fans of the seemingly missing in action Decoration will rightly swoon at it all. Flip over for ’cyan skies’ which by our ears simply re-affirms all we said previously about that greying 80’s grip - mind you throw into the equation a smidgeon of Pavement and Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 (as to the reasons why I honestly don’t know but there’s a definite afterglow of both tripping from the grooves) and I’m suspecting voila - your new favourite band - now to the issue of begging letters for that errant debut.
-Losing Today - Losing Today Magazine