Mojo
Stewart Lee- Sunday Times
NME
Dazed & Confused
Stool Pigeon
Loud & Quiet
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ARTROCKER
Recorded in the basement of Europe’s one and only Ukulele
shop, you say? Well did Let’s Wrestle’s drunken-uncle-at-a-wedding punk rock
debut glean any uniqueness from the surroundings in which it was spawned?
‘In The Court Of The Wrestling Let’s’ is, for the most part,
a 16-track extravaganza of strangled, scuzz-ball art-punk; but there is more to
it than pure adolescent whinings and self-deprecation.
LW show a more sensitive side with tracks like the
inebriated-cowboy lament of ‘My Schedule’ and the ukulele-driven (words I never
thought I would write) ‘In Dreams’.
Many of the tracks are lined with the wit we’ve come to
expect from these chaps: ‘Song For Old People’ and ‘My Arms Don’t Bend That
Way, Damn It!’ are two examples of the dry humor, which helps to set this
London 3-piece apart from many of their contemporaries. Couple this with
stand-out tracks such as ‘I’m In Love With My Destruction’ and ‘Tanks’ and you
have a mighty fine effort, made all the more enjoyable for its slight whiff of
Dinosaur Jr. after a few bottles of sambuca.
Martyn Boyle
ROCKSOUND....
Rating:
8
The
Husker Du-lionising
and strategic swearing of earlier releases might be absent, but Let's Wrestle's
copious charms are otherwise very much in force on their full-length debut.
They're a comedic, careering proposition, all speaker-flinging guitars,
furiously fluid bass (most notably on 'We Are The Men You'll Grow To Love Soon'
and courtesy of the magnificently monikered Mike Lightning) and
distracted-yet-impassioned hollering about Gedge-esque insecurity ('My Arms
Don't Bend That Way, Damn It!'), bedsit schlock ('Insects') and the outright
weirdness of the fetishising fandom of a certain deceased princess (the
outstanding 'Diana's Hair'). It's an utter shambles, inevitably, but
submission's virtually mandatory.
For fans of: Art Brut, Hefner, The Fall
Iain Moffat....
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SHORTLIST....
let’s
wrestle: in the court of the wrestling lets....
It’s summer, which meanis its
time to wheel out the feel-good tunes. enter london trio let’s wrestle, whose
debut has sun-tinged frivolity by the sackful. theres jangly guitars, witty
observations about the weather and delightfully shouty chroses, all wrapped in
up lifting three-minute bundles.....
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....RECORD COLLECTOR
****
“No matter how many records I buy/I can’t fill this void.”
I actually passed out after enjoying Lets Wrestle earlier
this year although that was due to a mix of alcohol and anti-histamines rather
than Wrestlemania. This North London trio announced themselves with a pleasing
debut 7” on Marquis Cha Cha before signing to Stolen recordings where they have
floated a winning CD EP and one stone cold classic 7” - Let’s Wrestle.
Musically, there is an anarchic punk spirit and reckless youthful thrust in
their mixture of guitar, pliant bass and rock hard drumming that sometimes
sounds like they are going around a corner with two wheels off the ground and
every door open. Lyrically, they are Libertines with no time for poetry with
subject matter ranging from record collecting, comics, mundane life, unrequited
love, an insane obsession with Lady Diana’s hair and even old age. In Dreams
sounds like a mixture of Blur and Roy Orbison whilst I’m In Love With
Destruction, I’m In Fighting Mode, I Won’t Lie To You, Tanks and My Schedule
are fantastic Finally, with its 60’s
Beach Boys meet Ramones harmonies We Are The Men you’ll Grow To Love is an
summer anthem waiting to seduce every lover of punk rock - whatever their age.-Ian Shirly
........Rough Trade
rough trade exclusive with bonus cd of let's wrestle covering 5 songs.
'in the court of the wrestling let's' is the debut album from the youthful,
shambolic and endearing let's wrestle. it was recorded in a basement in
whitechapel underneath the only ukulele shop in europe and released by the ever
impressive stolen recordings. the 16 track album (including 3 interludes) has
everything you'd want from a let's wrestle release - that certain english
charm, hooks that would sit perfectly on a buzzcocks release and that magical
yet slightly out of tune vocal that only dan treacy from the tv personalties
and nickki sudden from the swell maps have perfected in the last 30 years.
singer, guitarist and lyricist wesley crafts urban learesque pop punk ecstasies
about - a woman inside your head with no face that you are in love with,
getting a job so you can buy girls drinks at clubs, how bass player mike
lightning's hair looks like princess diana's from the point of view of a
homosexua! l man who is in love with the dead princess, a really famous crack
addict and the elderly people of frinton on sea. 'in the court of the wrestling
let's' is a young, exciting, ramshackle and much loved album here at rough
trade shop. –....
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....LINE OF BEST FIT....
Among
Let’s Wrestle’s list of given influences, two initially stand out as
particularly apposite. Vic Godard and the Subway Sect took the half-learned
clatter of punk schooling and applied it to smart, sophisticated proto-new wave
with a soul learning, while the Television Personalities traded in singular
lyrical matter, playfully whimsical alt-rock with a cracked edge and a frontman
who was uncompromising about most things, not least the art of tonality in
vocal style.
Even if you’re already primed not to come to the tremendously titled In The
Court Of The Wrestling Let’s, if you know the inspiration and are expecting
great avant-garde virtuosity you might wonder whether this sort of thing wasn’t
better served in the short burst of last year’s In Loving Memory Of… EP
rather than this full length album. Well, not quite – there’s three short
‘interludes’ and the title track is four and a half minutes of instrumental
throwdown that aspires to Lynyrd Skynyrd. But then again, there’s an indication
throughout the rest of the album that for all their faux-shambolic nature
there’s plenty going on in conception. It may like want you to believe it’s all
offhanded and scrappy, but it also belongs to a more successful British
lineage, that of the straight ahead punk influenced power-pop exhibited in
various methods by the Buzzcocks, The Wedding Present and The Cribs.....
At
the forefront of such idiot savant new wave – ‘We Are The Men You’ll Grow To
Love Soon’ – is singer, guitarist and songwriter Wesley Patrick Gonzalez. A man
with a voice like the Cribs’ Ryan Jarman who’s just woken up in a lyrical world
inhabited by almost unique urbanite concerns, just as a band named after a
David Shrigley drawing might suggest, enveloping the old universal favourite of
lost love. ‘My Schedule’ is a litany of deeds for the day, involving libraries,
charity shops and forgetting to put the kettle on, relayed in swaying
part-waltz time with doo-wop backing vocals before Gonzalez cracks and admits
“I wish you’d call on me but you don’t call at all”. ‘I’m In Love With
Destruction’ is driven by insistent drumming and the shame of whatever happened
the previous night, as Gonzalez declares “I’ve only got one function and
that’s to mess things up”. He gradually wises up and realises “you
stopped caring since I messed things up”. As for happier times, echoes of
early rock and roll turn up again in the ukelele and handclap driven ‘In
Dreams’, as the 1950s indebted title spurs memories of of daydreaming and
wistfulness.....
And
then there’s ‘Song For Old People’, which has all the respect for elders you’d
imagine Gonzalez would have, as he illustrates how much better he’ll be when
he’s an OAP. And then there’s ‘Diana’s Hair’, wherein the narrator
misses Diana Princess Of Wales so much that he becomes fixated on a man with an
apparently identical ‘do.....
Are
Let’s Wrestle merely nouveau slackers, then? I’d argue not, more exhibitors of
the deadpan. There’s a bitterly lovelorn charm of a band learning to better
themselves. Take note of how ‘I Won’t Lie To You’ rears up with rapid fire
guitar, bares its heart at speed and then collapses attempting a guitar hero
close beyond the performance’s means. It’s not quite pop-punk, more a kind of
rock’n'roll refraction through thirty years of what used to be called the
alternative. At a basic level it reflects their strength – whack it down,
capture the essence of a band on their debut album just going for it with full
vim and vigour, with searchingly insistent counterpoint basslines, raggedly
exuberant riffs and whack it down drumming. It’s an odd record, potentially an
offputting one, but eventually it’ll win you over with its strength of
personality and the fact that behind the bluster is a very English indie rock
(pre-unit shifting) kind of ragged glory.
77%
CMU 4/6/2009
ALBUM REVIEW: Let's Wrestle - In The Court Of The Wrestling
Let's (Stolen Recordings)
I suppose that being a bit ham-fisted and, well, weird, has
always been part of the charm and attraction of punk-inspired indie mentalists
Let's Wrestle. Coming at us full speed with their much anticipated debut LP,
'In The Court Of The Wrestling Let's', the London-based trio have gone for a
wider approach in sound than what was originally anticipated. Rather than
creating another run-of-the-mill punk-influenced indie record, they have drawn
in inspiration from the romance of Buddy Holly and the innovation of Pink
Floyd, mixing these sounds in with their roots to create something that floats
somewhere between the pleasant tenderness of Noah And The Whale and the offbeat
madness of Dananananaykroyd. Nevertheless, the classic punk sound can still be
found on title track, 'We Are The Men You'll Grow To Love Soon' and 'Insects',
where the band ultimately stay true to form and what they love, adopting and
nurturing the classic Britishness of music created by their predecessors The
Buzzcocks and The Jam. 'In The Court Of The Wrestling Let's' was never going to
be a straight-forward record - and Let's Wrestle are certainly not a
straight-forward band. It's messy, changeable and a bit odd - but that's what
makes it so bloody good. TW
Release Date: 29 Jun
Press Contact: Stolen Recordings IH [all]
..
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........NOISE MAKES ENEMIES
Apparently recorded in a Whitechapel basement beneath the only
ukulele shop in Europe, ‘In The Court of The Wrestling Let’s’ is a fun, dynamic
and catchy album with excellent musical hooks and energy-filled melodies.
The first noticeable flaw, however, is that the vocals are
pretty terrible, but much like the seventies punk bands that Let’s Wrestle cite
as their influences, it takes nothing at all away from the sound as a whole,
and there’s something weirdly charming in their vocal quality.
The strange lyrical subject matter of each song is a
source of fantastic amusement as you navigate through this very much
out-of-the-ordinary release, which in places is quite bewildering but
nevertheless works incredibly well as a collection of music. It mixes just the
right number of cheeky, entertaining tunes such as ‘My Arms Don’t Bend That
Way, Dammit!’ with heartbreaking but totally random rock ‘n’ roll ballads such
as ‘My Schedule’, a song which centres on failing to make cups of tea and
visiting charity shops. The ukulele-driven sound of seventh track ‘In Dreams’
alongside the strangely addictive vocals this band provides is reminiscent of
folk-indie bands like Noah And The Whale and Mumford & Sons; a little
different from The Clash and other well-known punk bands in terms of style.
The album, at sixteen tracks, is perhaps a little longer
than any good punk rock record ought to be, but the length does provide the
band an opportunity to show they are a little bit more than all the other punk
and rock bands of the twenty-first century. And the album may be sixteen tracks
long, but three of these are less than a minute in length, and like you’d
expect from punk-infused music, only one track lasts more than three and a half
minutes. The short bursts of song mean you don’t get bored at any point in the
album, and the varied feel of the product as a whole is fantastic.
For this reason and for its general feel, I highly
recommend this as a record to take with you if you’re going on any road trips
this summer; it has all of those things necessary for driving long distances,
and will provide a fantastic soundtrack for road-related antics of all kinds.
By Lauren Razavi
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CLASH MAGAZINE....
Stolen Recordings....
Let's Wrestle - In The Court Of
The Wrestling Let's....
A year or so ago, the wobbly rock of Let’s Wrestle – ramshackle, raucous, utterly
delightful – felt like a bit of a private passion between a small group of
friends and myself. The London trio’s sketchily stripped-back arrangements,
primitive in design but punchy enough to leave their mark, were drunk down and
spewed up – sing-along-friendly fare for critics needing a break from so much
sour-faced seriousness.....
But there was always something at the
heart of the tunes that made up mini-album ‘In Loving Memory Of…’, recipient of
a deserved 9/10
review with my previous employers, so damn addictive – the deadpan vocals
could grate, but the lyrics sparkled; the basslines frolicked, always driving
onwards, while the perfunctory drumming was a perfect percussive accompaniment.
Everything was the right kind of minimal – through necessity, perhaps, but none
the worse for it. In fact, the group’s apparent naivety was most endearing.....
Now, many more ears have opened, and hearts swelled
to the sounds of Wesley Patrick Gonzales, Mike Lightning and Darkus Bishop, and
their singularly stupid/superb take on lo-fi slacker-rock: think Yo La Tengo
singing nursery rhymes after necking ten pints of cough medicine, or The Fall
with all players’ tongues coated in that fizz-popping candy: it’s super-sweet
but full of bite, full of spirit and the purest passion for their chosen art.
There is attention to detail aplenty, even if the details are largely broad,
the nuances actually more like gigantic fists that pound your skull for three
minutes at a time.....
A great deal of this record’s appeal lies in the
lyricism of Gonzales, whose meandering stories entrance with their muddled
cocktail of everyday dreariness – ‘My Schedule’ is, essentially, a list of
things he’ll do in the day, albeit set to a swooning shimmer of guitar and
drums – and expressive surrealism – ‘Insects’ finds our protagonist troubled by
bugs which may or may not be there, since they’re getting into his head and
coming out of his fingers. ‘In Dreams’ is a beautiful ballad addressed at a
fantasy girl, acutely tender in its articulating of emotion – but while Let’s
Wrestle have you all awww one minute, the next they’re hammering away
at their fragile instruments with efforts like ‘I Won’t Lie To You’, a
brilliant anthem to self-defeatists. Lead single ‘We Are The Men You’ll Grow To
Love Soon’ is a wonderfully mischievous ditty, again brimming with
absurd/genius matter-of-fact wordplay, and was Single of the
Week here on ClashMusic.com only seven days ago.....
‘In The Court Of The Wrestling Let’s’ – yes, the
title is a nod to King Crimson – is the kind of collection that offers something
special for each and every day of the week. When you wake up on the wrong side
of the bed and feel like sticking your fingers into the eyes of all the dicks
on the Tube who assume you had a rough one the night before, there’s something
to sooth that burn; if it’s a burst of energy you’re needing, to feel
invigorated after actually having a rough one the night before, they offer such
a service too. And if you just want a laugh, there’s loads to be had here. Not
that Let’s Wrestle aren’t serious about what they create – you can’t craft such
seemingly simple songs without really being very accomplished. It’s elementary
Les Dawson Theory.....
So, world, enjoy. There’s so much good to
Let’s Wrestle, such a great deal of dumb-smile glee conveyed with this album,
that it’s a perfect pick-me-up for any occasion. It’s Buzzcocks-goes-Daniel
Johnston, with a little Guided By Voices on the side, erudite and desperate,
and everything mentioned above and yet a lot, lot more. And it’s a pleasure to
share it, and them, with you.....
9/10....
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