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LP
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TR1F 002LP
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At the core of The Leg's long-term trio are mercurial vocalist and driving force Dan Mutch, cellist, producer, and one-man scratch orchestra Pete Harvey, and percussive polymath Alan Scurlock. The three have played together for the best part of twenty years, ever since Mutch unleashed his first band, Khaya, into the world before it morphed into Desc, eventually realigning as The Leg. Chromatic Perversion features guitarist James Metcalfe and bass player John Mackie swelling the ranks. Metcalfe comes to The Leg after stints in The Pineapple Chunks led to his current tenure in Zed Penguin. The Leg's frenetic folk-punk gallop has never sounded so focused or -- at moments -- as euphoric as on this latest opus. Harnessing the driven mayhem of its quartet of predecessors: 8 Songs by The Leg (2006), What Happened To The Shrunken Tina Turner? (2009), An Eagle To Saturn (2012), and Oozing A Crepuscular Light (2013), Chromatic Perversion is infused with a more upbeat and organic skip. From the opening "Radge Almond Mutches," the album is the sound of getting one's head together in the country, but not always liking what one finds. Beyond the drum-skitters and scrape of strings, a rustic old-worn charm nevertheless pervades beyond the foreboding urgency of the likes of "Impossible Colours," and on "Trouble at The Centre Of The Universe" seems to dance a jig to life itself. At the other end of the woods shades of Nirvana by way of Black Sabbath seem to possess "Those Dogs" whilst coming out the other side of the tunnel, a cover of Moondog's "High On A Rocky Ledge" melds the joie de vivre of The Move with the most manic string action this side of John Cale a la "Venus In Furs."
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