The Brainiac 5

You cannot treat this as any kind of ‘ordinary’ album.

Brainiac 5 sit in many camps but they are true to their origins in the ‘70’s Cornish scene and mix elements of punk, psych, rock and something that is definitely Cornish.

They have been away for a long while – they split before their debut album was released in the late seventies (it was finally released in 1988) but came back together in 2013, recording a 10” EP of music inspired by Sun Ra and then saw a retrospective released to great acclaim – a typically complex history for a band who always sat away from any kind of mainstream.

The sound of The Brainiac 5 is difficult to describe – there are many influences but no shortage of originality. Lead vocalist Charlie Taylor has a voice with the vibrato of Bryan Ferry and the throatiness of Howard Devoto but it works against the stark punkiness of the opener ‘Haphazard!’.

This incarnation of The Brainiacs also includes Duncan Kerr (Mad Dog) on guitar, Nic Onley on flute and sax, John ‘Woody’ Wood on bass, percussion and harmonica plus Wayne Worrell on drums and the flexibility of their talents mean that they can make music in lots of different genres from the out and out popiness of ‘Ordinary Man’ through the screaming garage rock of ‘Empty and Blue’ and on to the countrified reggae of ‘Exorcist Plan’. But it all works; you find yourself excitedly listening at the beginning of each track to see where they are going next and it never seems to disappoint.

It is a pretty unique album and one that gets better with familiarity, one that will stay on your deck for a long while and come back time and again in the future.