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Twat Union - 'Don't Look It In The Eye' EP Review

Sean Friswell
3 minutes ago
2 min read

Tracklist:

Little Pink Drill
Singer Of The Band
Red Flag
Danger Boob
UTI

It would be easy to hear this EP, and fire off some piece about progressive politics pop punk with a message, maybe chuck in some phrase like “imagine Lambrini Girls halfway through a night out”, pat myself on the back and then tick off this review on my to do list. And at first, I thought that was what I was going to have to do. You see, ‘Don’t Look It In The Eye’ gives the listener every opportunity to write it off as a bit of as laugh, right from the start (more about the start in a moment, dear reader). There is humour throughout this record; not just in the lyrics which range from saucy to menacing to exasperated, sometimes within a breath, but also in the musical choices made in the songwriting.

Take ‘Little Pink Drill’ as an example- it opens with an almost bluegrass a capella, close harmony rendition of the song’s chorus. I don’t want to give away the gist of the lyrics, as hearing them fresh really is the only way that you can fully appreciate them- but it’s quite the way to open the record. The track itself is a kind of Punky and Western, genres which fit surprisingly well together, evoking daydreams of fights in big saloons, people flying all over the shop, spit and sawdust filling the air, and Twat Union soundtracking the whole bastard thing.

Similarly, ‘Dangerboob’ displays pop punk as viewed through the filter of a Bassey era Bond theme song. If that sounds really weird, it’s because it really is weird. But there is a good weird and a bad weird, and this is definitely the first sort. It’s sometimes a little unhinged, but then again- aren’t we all? The variety of features in the aural landscape of this record, may read as a little overbearing- running from saxophone solos to screaming, from Bassey to Country, but it just impresses the EP’s urgency upon the listener.

It’s clear that there’s a message here, and it’s one that needs to be heard and heeded. Heard and heeded especially by men. Twat Union make their point very clearly, this is not the place (nor the time) for nuanced lyrics hinting at male red flag behaviour, this is the scream of exasperation, the sound of the camel’s back breaking under all of the straw (that’s a bloody horrible metaphor, now I think about it), the blunt expression of vexation towards the overbearing patriarchy, plus it’s a really fucking good record- imagine Lambrini Girls halfway through a night out…