Scorched Earth Policy - (2020) Keep Away From the Wires CD

 

Medication – 004

SEP followed the Victor Dimisich band and lasted from '82-'86. Stapleton and Mary Heney continued on from VDB but the most important new element was Brian Crook... Brian Crook's guitar playing sounds like the result of a thirty day wander through a desert. It's psychedelic in the way that alchol poisoning and sunstroke are. I don't even think they have desert in New Zealand, but if they do - even 10 square feet - I'd wager Crook has toured it extensively, and frequently on hands and knees. The Scorched Earth Policy sound wasn't quite as obvious as the name - a baked, churning mixture of punk rock, 60s garage and psychedelia and a tinge of country. The lyrics began taking a turn from the arty to the bad trip and horror movie side of things. Male/female vocals and some of the most excellently raw production in my memory gave the music a sound that is somehow 1960s, somehow timeless. Not "paisley revival" bullshit, this, but an atavistic rebirth, a slavering and weird new thing from old roots.