This page is supposed to be in a frame. View the proper web site here MAKE - album reviews

Subba Cultcha Review:

http://www.subba-cultcha.com/article_album.php?id=5641

(4/5)

The DIY musical equivalent of drinking cider and dropping acid while sat on a war memorial in a small Welsh village Well, this is a strange little slice of Welsh weirdness, and no mistake. attack+defend certainly aren't chasing after the easy targets; Make is an album length exploration of possibilities that has little regard for trendy styles, relying instead on spontaneity and a hefty handful of surrealism. While I was a student, I used to live with a fine arts undergraduate. Maybe you've known someone similar; art students are ten a penny, but a few of them have some kind of built-in leftfield genius that just comes out in everything they do, no matter how inexplicable that might be to your less bohemian brain. You know the ones; the sort of guys who, having made an honest start on the washing up, end up spending a few hours investigating the uses of washing-up liquid as a painting medium, or building a sculpture of an emu out of old bent forks. They can't help it – it's in their blood. attack+defend remind me of that guy I used to live with to an almost uncanny degree. The main component of the artistic instinct is to make use of what you've got; low budgets are no barrier, and the whole history of the form is available for you to rob ideas and themes from. Make sees attack+defend running riot through the last four decades of music, plucking anything they like the sound of and sticking it into their own collage. And just listen to what you get: dreamy whimsical pop songs tempered with hallucinogenic post-indie weirdness; jangly guitars; cheap and cheesy synths from Tandy; sparse jazzy drumming; understated vocals dripping with surrealism and hidden knowledge; queasy moments of discord and key-breaking chords; lyrics about pixies and working in candle factories. It's completely crazy – but utterly fascinating. attack+defend have taken the DIY ethic to its quirky apogee. There's not even any vibe of defiance or rebellion about it – they've just trundled off and done their own thing, utterly unconcerned with what anyone else thinks. For that attitude alone they deserve your respect; but the music on Make is well worth a listen, too. If you're at all interested in what happens beyond the borders of mass-appeal commercial musical product, or you simply have a soft spot for that uniquely British brand of surrealism that occasionally bubbles up on the fringes of the music scene, this album is waiting for you to discover it.

By: Paul Raven

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3 Bar Fire.com Review:

http://www.3barfire.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=375&Itemid=26

Attack + Defend's debut album sneaks up on you like an increasingly eccentric dream. At first it's a cacophony of catchy tunes, but come the end the album has suddenly become essential, warranting an instant replay, which may become a perpetual loop. Opening track 'How to Build a Boat' is an infectious sea shanty slash pop song hybrid with a woozy summer vibe that leads effortlessly into the more clipped 'Any Danger'. Track three is an anti-consumer rant with grandiose backing vocals called 'More', the band's wilds-of-Wales roots come to the front in 'For Phaelon Four' with its squeaky guitars and too-many-lyrics-per-line delivery which makes this feel like Pavement covered by Rocket Science. The first single from the album is 'Garibaldi' which dances giddily between being Captain Pugwash and The Clash. 'Processwhore' and 'News Is Not Neutral' are slightly more balanced tunes, but each is toe-tapping and comes as the perfect mid-section before the album ascends into the gobsmack-o-sphere with the beautiful, twinkly, magical 'D.N.A.'; a triumphant, optimistic tune that sounds like the perfect soundtrack to an eighties videogame you wish you'd played. Before you can even feel that the album has peaked the next track comes along, 'Drawing Lines' is jaw dropping in its apocalyptic fuzzy excellence, skipping schizophrenically between The Beta Band and Queens of the Stone Age; it builds and builds before collapsing into a hurricane of raw guitars. The dreamlike 'Handel the Flagship' sashays irreverently by before the final track, 'The Shortcut' echoes and reverberates over a church organ-like synth like the anthem of the last kid to leave the school disco… a lone wail of hope that is very impressive and unlike anything else on the album.

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BBC Wales Music Reivew:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/music/sites/attack_and_defend/pages/make.shtml

Charmingly wonky debut album from Cardiff-based band of brothers. Naivety, innocence and lo-fi experimentation are the watchwords on this, the frequently brilliant debut album from Cardiff-based brothers Attack+Defend. The most obvious reference point is psych-rock maverick Syd Barrett. Opener How To Build A Boat defines the agenda: offbeat, hippyish lyrics about treasure hunting and mutinies, bolted onto chopsy guitars, cheesy organs and taking in at least three four tempo changes. It ought not to work, but A+D carry it off deftly. The band manage to repeat the trick over the course of the album without it ever becoming predictable, throwing post-punk, 80s synths and indie pop together with an easy attitude towards tunefulness and timekeeping. All this would fall apart without the ability to throw a tune together, but A+D have no problems on that score. Each song sounds like it took as long to write as it took to play, with chops and changes as the band's mood takes them. Idiosyncratic and inventive, Make sounds like it was constructed out of wonky and incomplete Meccano and Fisher Price sets unearthed in jumble sales, and bound together by wrappings of Fuzzy Felt. And if that doesn't pique your interest, you're most likely unpiqueable.

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Whisperin and Hollerin Review:

http://www.whisperinandhollerin.com/reviews/review.asp?id=4945 (7/10)

Cymbal-happy and Ba-ba-da-ba-da-pa-pa –ing into your head comes the first full-length release from shambolic popsters ATTACK & DEFEND. 'How To Build A Boat' is as nautical as it gets, with talk of mutiny abound. Suddenly kicking into overdrive with a cry of "Ss-setsaill", it's clear the punk ethic reigns supreme. Domestic crisis? If you openly wait for your tea like the chap in 'Any Danger', you'll end up with forks in your eyes. Are we being driven to distraction or abstraction – the lyrical references to gestures rather than words pose that intriguing question (actions do speak louder). Bleeps and breaks intersperse with off kilter guitars, shouty, slurry vocals and machine gun hi-hat hammer during 'More', a clanking subscaling anti-spiral from the periphery of the mind's eye. Elsewhere, harmonies shine as meaninglessness is assessed, or apathy levels. The bad-dream realities of 'Processwhore' squeak and warn against rat-racing, but the noise from the speakers is all good. 'Drawing Lines' is confusion encapsulated, inert psychosis mixed with boredom, atonal keys and rolling percussion. The bassline is apoplectic and beautifully sub-standard, and the whole thing is the burning brained antithesis to the early eighties 'Choose Life' approach, complete with concluding bad-tempered guitar flurry. I wouldn't like to have to pigeonhole this – where the category obsessive might (out of frustrated confusion) file it in the box marked 'I dunno', the genre defying mixed-message delivery frequently hits the spot during this eleven-track assault on kitsch domesticity. Just to be obscure, there's a book called 'Leaving the 20th Century' by the International Situationists. If that book came with a free flexi, then it would sound a little something like this.

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Big Issue review:

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=151836008&blogID=293978142

Attack+defend are three brothers from the hills of Wales, and this, their debut album, is a left field, hyperactive jumble of skewed beats, rambling vocals and sinister keyboards. This album is so full of quirks that eventually the cracked guitars, seemingly random changes of tempo and baffling organ themes all make perfect sense. Certainly not dull, repeated listens reveals smart, complex song structures beneath the lo-fi sound and uncomplicated musicianship. It's easily the nemesis of today's production line pop.
Dean Noonan

====================================== Kruger Magazine:



I could write this review in one word. It's the first word on the album and it sums the whole, beautiful package up. "Woo!" yelps singer Mark on the opening of the opening track how to build a boat. "Woo!" think I, especially as I've been waiting ONE WHOLE YEAR to hear the results of last summers recording sessions by these three brothers. Make comes in a sunshine yellow box covered in parrots and penguins and space-related paraphernalia, swirls and the South Pole. Inside are 11 tracks that attack the world with a series of wide-eyed, toddler inquisitive whys arresting your earlobes with choruses from toyshop wonderlands. "So where are we heading, to find treasure?" Mark asks and we're launched into a kaleidoscopic landscape of arcade games, space travel, arctic exploration and the ills of the modern world from mass consumerism (More) to the onslaught of wrongisms the daily news throws in our face (News is Not Neutral). Those who had their appetites whetted by the Owl EP will not be disappointed, the same raw shambolic charm is present here, and More hops over to appear on the album too, yet the sound has also grown and filled out with the delightful addition of youngest brother JT's melodic backing vocals against Mark's growling shoutiness and some more Lee-experimentalism. While Garibaldi a crowd favourite from the band's energetic live set is another welcome addition. What you have is a lovely thing, much like a banana in that it comes in yellow packaging and makes you smile after consuming. It has all their usual quirky lyrics and pop preambling and makes me feel much the same as when finding something utterly brilliant in a disorganised mountain at a jumble sale. Like the girl in 'DNA' I find myself dancing on the table, waving my fist and shouting "Look!" because this is a party and I am meant to. Join in.

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Buzz Magazine:

Unrelenting and utterly fantastic, these local boys prove that their uncurbed assault on the South Wales music scene has indeed been justified. Tripped out and sprawling all over the place, this album is full of microcosmic whirlwinds with which to batter eardrums into happy submission. Self-released, and well 'on it' in terms of the limited released, these guys make sure what they do is special and hopefully the loss of fourth musketeer Chris Mason won't shake up the live stuff too much **** (4/5)

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indie-pendent Zine:



'Make' is psychedelic sun with Syd Barrett in cohorts with 70's DIY new wave (e.g The Fall), Teardrop explodes and Inspiral Carpets. A+D are prize pop for now people -& Garibaldi/DNA/More/How to Build a Boat & Drawing lines are the album aces. If Wales could Attack+Defend with this much Aplomb+Divserity - it is soccer glory not shocker gory days!

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Garibaldi Single reviews

" A + D (Adventure + Diversity) prove that Wales is a pop paradise devoid of genre borders " - Indie-Pendent 63

" wilfully peculiar, but never less than charming with it." - BBC Wales Music

" Like a lo-fi prog multi-coloured vision of the world, even on my third listen I'm still not sure whether it's fucking brilliant or just utter utter drug addled nonsense...... (about don pedro)it's barmy but actually an endearingly enjoyable ramshackle ride. ." - GIITTV

Owl EP reviews

"An exhilerating debutTorchbearers in the same irreverent mould as the Arctic Monkeys and Pete Doherty, the band has produced a record just dripping in shambolic charm - we love it! (8/10)" - disorder magazine

"the 'Owl EP' exceeds any kind of expectation for a debut release, and if anything, raises the bar somewhat for other artists in the futureLovely! (9/10)" drownedinsound

"it's the jumble of five splendid - and yet massively contrastive - tracks that is this EP's true charm. One listen and trust me, you'll be swept away on the Attack + Defend party bus." downloader

"Swinging around a climbing-frame of groovy guitar and 70s machine-made noise" - gigwise

Quench - 8/10
"an amazing debut" - powpowpow
"five tracks of bouncing optimism" - picadilly records