Singles

The Bridport Dagger - Magpies Nest/ Spanish One

Bill Cummings 00/00/0000

Rating: 4/5

London three piece The Bridport Dagger, unveil their new double A side single 'Magpies Nest/ Spanish One' and release it with the help of Death records (along with the demo and live track bonus). They create a harshness of sound that will slyly weave its way into your frontal lobes, digging out the literary works of Edgar Alan Poe being sound tracked by your favourite early Echo and the Bunnymen tracks.

First song 'Magpies Nest' clocks in at concise two minutes, which these days is such a blessed relief. In that time this precise, serrated jaunt alluringly takes you on a winding swim through the darker reassess of front man Jason Bridport's mind. His desperate, almost on the brink of cracking baritone tone is reminiscent of Ian Mculloch or Birthday Party era Nick Cave, a similar emotional yet dramatically delivered style of storytelling. His film noir-ish narratives are woven with personal horrors like Hitchcockian snapshots in time: 'Would you rip up my heart and throw the fucking thing down on the train track?' There's something so much harsher and more out of control about a baseless act - witness the early work of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or the White Stripes. Sometimes, without the safety net of a constraining rumbling rhythm to compliment, Arran's drums are given license to rein in the hypnotic timing while guitars slash intricately like daggers chasing you down in gloomy half light leaving scars on your brittle subconscious. Meanwhile 'Spanish One' soaks you in a curtain of chopping guitar reverb and persistent drum patterns. It's initially similar to the Doors' 'Crystal Ship', but this journey through nightmarish haunted house becomes infinitely more sinister when it's intercut with brutal images of self doubt.

In the hands of lesser acts these two tracks would sound like a well executed but well worn pastiche of groups of yore. But The Bridport Dagger create such a believable sound, a tightly orchestrated atmosphere of foreboding that like the Magpie they pick and chose the shiniest of their obvious influences and piece them together with bits of themselves. Watch their new wave wings take shape and fly.