Supermarionation - On The Fly, a review

A few days ago I got an email asking me to review this - being the first of any such request I was flattered and have been giving it a couple of listens since. If anyone else has any such requests then feel free to drop them by at bugsy2301@live.com :)

So, Supermarionation. An awesome name, no doubt, but what of the set-up? I'll take a bit of a quote from their website, located here:

Supermarionation are a punk powerpop three-piece from Edinburgh. We’ve got mad ideas in musical form and the power to knock you right off your feet if you happen to be before our full frontal assault. We are to be found playing around Edinburgh and Glasgow and like a rash all over the internets. We're hopping to move further afield in the real world too.

Supermarionation released their début record On the Fly on Six Take No Records on December 6th 2010. The release contains five original tracks (sampled above).

The entire EP is located here.

Now, with only 5 tracks it's of course not entirely possible to gauge their full potential, but I've given it a listen anyway. The first track, 'Those Home Girls' is a short blast of AC/DC-infused guitars steered along by a catchy bassline and unrelenting vocals from Steve that suddenly morph into a little bit of crooning on next track 'The Rising Tide', an ambitious and lengthier number with a nice guitar solo and unusual lyrics about girls from Mars. It's a certainly more subtle affair than its predecessor and I feel it would have been better placed at the end, as it has a bit of a winding down quality to it.

Particularly in comparison to 'The Ashes of Love', a pacy track with an infernal guitar riff that's still stuck in my head. It has the same kind of high-energy post-punk feel that Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age have dominated in recent years, and as a fan of both, I'm a fan of this. This continues in 'Lonesome Symphony', a 5 minute opus of Hendrix-inspired bursts and foot-tappingly catchy riffs that make it by far my favourite track. I think at times the vocals are a little drowned out by the sheer volume of the thing, but with a tune like this who cares? (sorry Steve)



And then there's finally 'Nothing Means Nothing' which doesn't really seem to want to end. Here drummer (Dave (I kind of like not knowing surnames, it makes them more ubiquitous)) powers things along with a gargantuan capacity, the tune itself being a bit Sex Pistols in its heavy punk influences.

The whole thing rounds off after 18 minutes and whilst that's not exactly long enough to testify for their full potential it's good enough to indicate the potential is great. There's something refreshingly raw about them, unwilling to pander to big management's requirements for turgid watery soft-rock ballads - that's caught my interest.

Rating: 7/10
Highlights: Lonesome Symphony, Nothing Means Nothing, The Ashes of Love
Avoid: n/a