26/08/00 - dotmusic.com

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Sat 26 Aug 2000 16:27

THE ANIMALHOUSE

Leeds - The Evening Session Stage, 3pm

Erstwhile of Oxford shoe-gazers Ride, Mark Gardiner and Loz Colbert return with this their new outfit.

And in their new incarnation you can forgive the pair all that fey, floppy-fringed, indie twiddling they did in the early Nineties. For The Animalhouse are a musclier, more exciting and altogether more absorbing proposition.

Dipping into their new album 'Ready To Receive', The Animalhouse forge darkly atmospheric, psychedelic rock grooves, fleshed with Moog and other odd synth noises and powered along by some fluid, bubbling, rumbling basslines.

Gardiner looks barely recognisable, his girlish fringe a distant memory, replaced by a thinning crew-cut. But this harder, no-nonsense image suits the aggressive, hypnotic, melodic menace of his new combo, which at times sounds like The House Of Love and The Cure.

They finish on the bristling powerhouse of 'Animal' and quite frankly it would have been simply smashing to hear a whole lot more. Well done!

Gary Crossing

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