Test Icicles - For Screening Purposes Only
[Domino]

Following a handful of blistering bastardised singles and a sell-out nationwide tour, Test Icicles debut album For Screening Purposes Only, drops to an unsuspecting audience.

Were the early rave reviews right? Do Test Icicles live up to the huge expectations and potential Boa Vs Python and Circle, Square, Triangle suggested? Damn right they do. For Screening Purposes Only is everything a debut album should be. It's ballsy, raw and gritty in all of the right places, hedonistic through and through, incredibly eclectic and basically, sounds like none of their peers.

Test Icicles' produce a unique hybrid of their favourite listening tastes and unbelievably it's all in there in some form or other. Everything from metal, rock, hardcore, art-rock, hip hop, indie, post-punk and new-wave can be heard and often, several of those are fused at once. They take the three MC rhyming of the Beastie Boys, angular guitars and massive metal riffs, then apply programmed machine beats or live disorderly punk drumming.

Their approach at times can seem chaotic or unplanned, but this only adds to the additive qualities of their genuine care-free attitude. For Screening Purposes Only is exciting, it's fun and it's refreshing to think this years most daring album has come from a band who have been barely together for long. This will undoubtedly by topping many End Of Year Charts - utterly essential.