The Cellar Family - Jumbo

(Self-released, 2012)

The Cellar Family have quickly made a reputation for themselves as the freakiest gaggle of deviants making music in Oxford and have won themselves a deservedly large number of fans as a result. “In the Garden” immediately sets Jumbo apart from last year's Flab EP – this is the terrifying nightmare to that bizarre daydream. Singer Jamie Harris has clearly lent his inner demons a voice and they've gone on a bit of a bender with it, sounding, at times, like an unhinged, nasal version of the Young Knives' Henry. Elsewhere he makes the kind of sounds you generally only make when you think no-one else is listening. Once again, it's hard to avoid making comparisons to Mclusky, Pixies, the Young Knives et al but there's now more noise a la Liars, Big Black and Shellac to add texture and complexity to the queasy stew. Jumbo is a demented punk-racket gem.

[Originally published in Oxford Music Scene magazine, issue 19]
http://www.oxfordmusicscene.co.uk/images/oms_issue19.pdf