Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Brain salad surgery, the occupation of the elongated Progressive anthems, and one that is a gift to music that keeps giving. Yet for all the might of a once Progressive past that has been resurgent, a post classic period that has delivered a drive for the story to be clear and mystical, the last 18 months have proved once again that the world moves in cycles, and art reflects that state of human emotion to its fullest potential.
Why have brain salad surgery when you can feast from the Punk utensils of Skull And Fork, to toast your friends from the hollowed out cranium, to devour the thoughts of the myopic with a significant, sizable fork, the three pronged attack that twists the cells and memories as if scooping up the tangled remains of spaghetti; this is the culinary argument to which Endless Idiot, also known as Who Killed Nancy Johnson’s Stefan Ball, espouses and compliments with passionate belief and cracking tunes.
Following on from the respected debut of Sisyphus at the start of the year, Endless Idiot’s output gathers pace, and in Skull And Fork what the listener is privy to is the arc of confrontation and the growing confidence produced by the one man love affair with the software and images in his mind, the technical revolution of the soul which makes brain salad surgery a thing of the past.
From the overture of the opening track of Stone, and through passages of exploration, wit, depth and cunning, Endless Idiot prove that the thoughts on the debut album were a cascade of ideas to come, and now as tracks such as Fallen, the excellent Hard-Working Family, the political enthused Pirouette, Pirouette and Pirouette and On A Rising Tide leave their indelible mark, the listener can feel the surge of music and relentless anger come washing over them as of they have been hit by a tidal wave of demand; and it one that is more than welcome, for it takes a great mind to find a way through the bland and hammer at the wall of the beige.
Raise a glass to your enemies, use a knife if you must, to cut through the fog of indecision, but in the end all you really need is a Skull And Fork, for it is that will frighten to death the insipid and the characterless approach we have become far too used to.
Endless Idiot’s Skull And Fork is out now and available on No Nation Punk, via Bandcamp.
Ian D. Hall