untitled musical project - untitled musical project

The band’s strict adherence to sub two-and-a-half-minute tracks gives them no time to stand and stare; the entire album is finished in less than twenty minutes, which flashes by even faster given the relentless pace of the music contained therein. UMP’s aural DNA shares much in common with the late, great Mclusky, but the dual-vocal onslaught also recalls the Beastie Boys in their vintage punk days, particularly during the opening of ‘It’s Not Credible to be so Intelligible’. Knob-twiddler Dan Swift has indeed worked with Mclusky themselves, as well as producing Art Brut’s ‘It’s a Bit Complicated’, and while this record sounds just as fresh and as vital as that one did, the lyrical deftness of Eddie Argos is missing on all but a few of these tracks, with notable exceptions including ‘A Popular Music Composition’ and ‘I Don’t Need You Honey! All I Need is Rock ‘n’ Roll’, which is suitably laden with wry nods to popular culture. Unfortunately, ‘I May Not Be Jimi Hendrix But at Least I’m Still Alive’ fails to live up to the unfettered genius of it’s title. This is an album which unquestionably packs a punch, but ultimately I can’t help thinking that UMP have somehow missed a trick. It was always going to be a struggle to capture the band’s awesome live presence here, so perhaps this album represented an opportunity for them to run further, and to create a more varied body of work rather than the rock-by-numbers approach seemingly taken. The visceral highs are present in places, however, which means that UMP remain an exhilarating proposition.