GOD IS IN THE TV ZINE REVIEW OF DESERT MONKEY'S 'WATER DAMAGE'.
"With
all but one of them possessing impressively long locks (which- as the
front cover proves- obviously looks great when they’re making
love to their gee-tars), Colchester’s Desert Monkey make big,
dumb garage rock that somehow separates itself from the hordes of high-school
wannabes. Their influences are worn firmly on their sleeve: second track
two evolves into a Black Dog-esque rock-out, the slap-bass on Water
Damage is pure Flea, and the numerous guitar solos hark back to the
days when no one really gave a shit who your influences were. And that’s
exactly the stance I’m going to take now: Desert Monkey are derivative
(what garage band isn’t?) but great fun and
suitably noisy. One thing that elevates Desert Monkey above other bands of their ilk is Lewis Spurgin’s superb Zeppelin singing. Incredibly, he manages it without sounding like the many musically-retarded students I’ve had to sit through. One problem, however, is that it’ll be a while before they can write a decent, unpretentious ballad, judging by some of the ‘quiet’ intros here, which sometimes sound like unbearable long-lost prog-rock songs. Sticking to the full-on rock they display here, though, will elevate Desert Monkey far above their peers." (Review by Mike Mantin from 'God Is In The TV Zine', January 2005) |