neurotic wreck

A message from Brian Bordellos drawing our attention to a release we erroneously missed on its initial appearance on RSD, this is, if you like, the more intimate foundation stones of Vukovar (who incidentally will be appearing here in their own right soon with the frankly immense ‘voyeurism’ album through the ever adored Small Bear imprint). A hectic schedule underway for Dan Shea, he who is essentially Neurotic Wreck, with commitments to the aforementioned Vukovar appearing to overshadow and cast his NW project into the back ground, this release comes ahead of two planned outings between now and Autumn time – ‘glow ghosts in subspace’ and ‘sandalphon’ (for Marilyn roxie’s vulpiano small bear imprints respectively). As said previously, thematically in his neurotic wreck persona, Mr Shea traverses a more intimate landscape weaved from hope hushed love notes, wounded affairs of the heart (‘life in sepia’) and an incitement to dream, moreover an open view of a soul exposed at close proximity warts n’ all. ‘priceless bloody priceless’ collects together five melodic arrows, much like a workbook perhaps a diary, as such they are prone to be personal, solitary and courted with lo-fi closeness which in terms of reference markers is navigated upon a song craft spectrum that subtly chimes and rings of Robert Forster. Creatively it provides for a mixed bag wherein the wonderfully minimalist shadow playing chill of ‘when the clocks start to melt’ with its ‘movement’ era New Order isolationism sitting in a direct adversarial path to the impacting full blooded seductively maturing smoker ‘let’s make hate’ which in truth sounds as though it’s been sneaked from the sonic note book of a certain Jon DeRosa – indeed – that classy. Elsewhere prepare to be bruised and drop kicked by the jaw dropped and touching spectral that is ‘lost in cleansing fire’ whose criminally brief fire fly like appearance is kissed with the ghostly intimacy of the Buckley’s Jeff and Tim and just when you think the emotional well is truly emptied and dried the irresistible cruel crush of ‘never learn’ comes to haunt, harrow and hurt the frightened and frail in love’s unforgiving wars with callous calculating devastation.  https://neuroticwreck.bandcamp.com/album/priceless-bloody-priceless