Photo: Rhiannon Barton
Lockdown may have halted the rise of south London based sextet Blue Bendy but they’ve finally been able to get back on their journey with their latest single ‘International’.
For those of you unaware of Blue Bendy, first I want you to imagine that Mark E. Smith and Morrisey had a love child – that’s pretty bang on as to where the vocals come in and sit for the entirety of the track. I know what you’re thinking, “My god these fuckers must be the most pretentious sounding band since Throbbing Gristle” but have no fear, they sedate the potential pretentiousness of the vocals with a relatively simple and lively drum beat that could fit onto any mid 90’s LA rap track and a piano that appears at the end and reminds the listener of the ever marching pierce that runs through ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’. Synths have echoes of ‘Gin and Juice’ that go hand in hand with the clean fuzzy guitars to create an overall sound that can fit into about half a dozen genres.
Blue Bendy have the sound of a band as far into their journey as they are, but that’s not a bad thing. Perhaps their sound is slightly scatter gun but they execute what they are doing well. At the minute though it is slightly too close to the sonic equivalent of when you mix too many paints together and make a brownish grey sludge. Every part of their sound has potential and moving forward, I’m looking forward to seeing how they can refine their sound, they’re offering something that isn’t coming out of London right now and listeners could do a lot worse than to buy now before Blue Bendy are out of stock.
