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It seems unlikely that Blancmange will undergo the kind of revival that has graced other 1980s synth-pop outfits such as The Human League and O.M.D. When they were around, I seemed to be alone in the classroom in enjoying smart, slightly offbeat pop. Blancmange never seemed to be taken fully seriously, and it's easy to guess that their name didn't help. I remember sitting in registration, reading an interview with the duo in "Smash Hits" magazine, looking over the playing card cover of the 7inch of "What's Your Problem?" I was fascinated with its slightly abstract, detached and critical lyrics; I dug the slightly lopsided drum pattern and condensed melody that never bust out of the confines of its quizzical nature. Neil Arthur had a fine voice… I even bought his post-Blancmange solo album (thoroughly enjoyable pop; he hadn't lost his edge). Many of Blancmange's songs always seemed to me to be on the edge of emotional psychosis, and I really got off on this. "Living on the Ceiling" and "Feel Me" are excellent examples. Then they did other, more downhearted tracks that were meticulous in their sorrow: "Lorraine's My Nurse"; "Why Don't They Leave Things Alone"; a heartbreaking cover of Abba's "The Day Before You Came". They had odd experimental B-sides. They played with Eastern influences and wackiness as a signpost to impending mental breakdowns. They Might Be Giants for asylum inmates.

Here's video of "Lose Your Love", wherein they smash up various things as they declare they don't want to lose that particular love. Revisiting their albums now, there is that hit-and-miss quality to their synthesiser sound: sometimes dated rather than retro. This track errs on the side of the former. Nevertheless, this video is typically Blancmange and fine a example of the cathartic qualities of their slightly troubled pop. The wackiness comes with the spinning foot; the emotional collapse with all the domestic destruction, where our two Blancmangers seem to come seriously close to inflicting serious damage on one another. They glare, they rotate, they smack a roast chicken to the floor and kick apart furniture. I remain a fan. We seem to be out there, but scattered and repressed, hardly ever meeting to sing "I'm so tall, I'm so tall!" to one another.

I went to see The Grunts play at The Good Ship (Kilburn, 3/10/08). A friend of mine said that they sounded too much like their influences. When chatting with Paul, bassist with The Grunts for six months or so and counting, he said he felt The Grunts sounded like a lot of bands you know, but not exactly like any of them. I'm going to agree with Paul here. The Grunts are something like Echo and the Bunnymen on Route 66. High churches of guitars steeped in Americana: Jim Jones, highways, koolaid, purple hearts, Jerry Springer and endless summers all get a reference in The Grunts, and in a live show, the swagger and rootsy origins of the songs are even more evident.

Bearing in mind that this is an Irish band, homed in Cork, and it's even more admirable that they pull it off. They can be funny too, though it's humour of the dry kind: "I'm a hetero-on-Death-Row-sexual" hollars Max Vanilla on their jeans-busting declaration "Hetero". It's satirical, surely, right? Their live shows are less glacial than the recordings (where Max's favourites, The Bunnymen, are definite inspirations in sound, though dirtier), but they are no less huge and sweeping, just a little more unashamed rock. They start with "Party Weirdo", their dancefloor anthem. They play songs about Jerry Springer being god. "If It Feels Good Do It" is one of my favourites, soaring and celebratory as Max croons "She won't enjoy the summer, 'coz she doesn't turn anybody on." The rhythm section bangs and buzzes along, holding down the tune as Max lets loose a dazzlement of guitar frenzy. Max's right hand works itself into a dervish of upward string-thrashing, culling a variety of sounds before even touching an effects pedal. Meanwhile, his left hand often works the frets like a pump-action shotgun. It really has to be seen, and it's mesmerising. His stage talk is mild mannered, and his voice carries a natural Irish melody, but he shouts and sours during the songs, thoroughly unleashed. In closing, Zack of The Refusniks joins The Grunts onstage to sing the closing numbers, and it all ends with "If The Leader of a Doomsday Cult Said", Max's perversion of the kind of dancefloor anthem they started with.

Sure, they sound a lot like what you know, but in the way that they take their influences and run with them, creating a thoroughly dark, satirical, jubilant and rocking-out that is truly disarming and thoroughly engaging on a number of levels. I have liked The Grunts for a long time, and it's a joy to see them prove they are much more in a live show.

Buck Theorem

HERE is a rundown of what I was watching through August-September 2008.

Reviews are:

Night of the Sunflowers

Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest

Darkness

Dinocroc

Them

Disturbia

Rear Window

Devil Times Five

Vacancy

The Dark Knight

Hellboy: Blood and Iron

Wilderness

The Garden

Ciao, amigos!

Buck Theorem

"Sparkers for Despair"

A post-modern state of love, virtually within close reach.

Machines love you best.

Hands pass right through it.

Meanwhile, I've blown a circuit that no one can repair. And now all out of focus... and despair! And despair...!

Humans defragment all, all around you.

I knew what you meant. I just didn't respond.

Meanwhile...

Thermostats are melting.

Now on shutdown.

I can't face anyone again, not in this condition.

Meanwhile... and despair!

Now I look for sparks.

Now I look for sparks.

Into the lights! into the lights!

Consumers of the modern age! Let your love be virtual! Your alienation is a firework!

Words - Buck, Guitar - Paul. September 2008.

The film has all the ingredients mentioned from the original story and takes its time filling out the set-pieces and turning the screws. It works as a nod to old fashioned monster movies and feels especially resonant of the bright fun-chew horror flicks of the 80s, and not in a bad way. But there are no hammy or camp inclinations here, despite the scenery-chewing of prime villainess Miss Carmody and dodgy CGI tentacles. "The Mist" is deadly serious and ultimately a more successful post-9/11 film than Shyamanlan's "Signs". "Signs" erred on the side of 'faith', and "The Mist" comes like a corrective, carrying a weight of conflict-weariness and the dangerous properties of fear and fear-mongering. There are solid performances, both broad and subtle; some fun if conventional monsters; a real claustrophobia; a credible escalation of character behaviour and drama; some nasty gore; but it's the ending that elevates "The Mist" into something more troubling and worth discussing.

In going one step further than its source material, Darabont's "The Mist" (he is also the screenwriter) offers is an escalation of bad luck, bad decisions and a sense of deeper horror than just crazy evangelical women and monsters: it offers the horror of your bad luck and your bad decisions occurring when knee-deep in fear and trying to survive an unstoppable threat.

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