On The Platter: Scanners - Violence is Golden
As I’ve mentioned yesterday, I’m currently obsessing over Scanners — a UK band under the very hip label du jour Dim Mak. Scanners has a very post punk sound injected with electroclash undertones and 70’s punk swagger. I love how their heavy guitar driven music is injected by little bursts of electronica that serve as counterpoints — like glitter sparsely powdered on a rough Anarchy sketch. It’s the mixing of the sweet and the brutal that makes their sound so beguiling.
Sarah Daly is one helluva vocalist and a perfect frontwoman for Scanners. Take for example the first two tracks from their debut album Violence is Golden. Daly sounds like she’s channeling Polly Jean Harvey in the first track Joy, making you think that the whole album will take a heavy direction, but the second track Lowlife sees Daly invoking a more vulnerable, though no less powerful, delivery — making you realize that this is not going to be as cut and dried as you once thought.
And it really doesn’t! It’s the element of unpredictability that has made me fall in love with Violence is Golden as an album and on Scanners as a band. I love it when a band can present so many influences, so many sounds and control these elements into a tight and cohesive product that may at sound amorphous on paper but in actuality has a unique structure that unfolds once you really prick up your ears and listen.
Scanners, Violence is Golden, Dim Mak
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