Larrikin Love, Leeds Cockpit, 02/02/07
Rating: 
NME once remarked that when they fed Larrikin Love’s record into their “secret NME Band Pigeonholing Machine” it generated a “huge explosion followed by an automated reply: ‘Service is out of order’”. Possibly, (at least I’d like to thinks so) this little disclosure was intended to reveal the delusional, foam secreting crazy of the NME office clan. Witless similes aside, the general gist is that the band certainly deserve some kudos for their cunning skirting of any genre.
The Freedom Spark skittishly meanders around a plethora of sounds, easily oscillating between Gypsy-ska and what sounds like a hillbilly-hoe down on speed, all in one song no less. So, tedium and monotony is something you can definitely count out if you head to Leeds - and besides, the rough, shambolic amalgam that lends the album such a restless feel is rumored to amplify into an energetic, infectious, flurry when uncaged and let loose live. Not a bad start then.
Larrikin form part of what the NME has dubbed the ‘Thamesbeat scene’ (with such overuse no wonder that “secret machine” busted a gasket). Larrikin’s sonic mongrel certainly possesses a poetic troubadour-like quality – think of them as the iPod generation’s version of the daffodil and Tintern Abbey-loving Romantics. Citing Wilde, Orwell and Byron as influences, the band may have somewhat of a literary ponceyness to them:
“The Freedom Spark is an exploration of innocence, of childhood, of human nature, and, ultimately, the yearning to have a real sense of freedom… it is the first instalment of an ongoing exploration” expounds Ed Larriken. Big things to come then.
If you’re up for some musical dynamism with a poetic varnish, the Cockpit will be your haven on the February 2. Still unconvinced? Consider going for the visual spectacle alone – with Ed Larriken’s one-side skinhead, other side Vernon Kay ‘do’, their coiffeurs are a work of avant-garde artistry in themselves.
