Album review: Sukilove – Static Moves

The guys at Jezus Factory just keep releasing more material… which is made all the more impressive when you consider that most of said material comes from a small but eclectic gang of Belgian musicians who often appear on each other’s records (the Antwerp scene is just like that, you see). Sukilove are more peripherally connected than some of the other Jezus Factory acts (there’s not a dEUS member among them, if I remember correctly) but they partake of the same off-kilter approach to alternative rock; Static Moves is one of those albums that sounds strangely familiar and outlandish at once.

Indeed, the whole album has a sort of creepy-wistful college-radio alternative feel to it, with a bit of Pink Floyd weirdness, some jazzy suave, and scattered found sounds and rhythmic loops thrown in; I remember their last EP as being a more directly poppy affair than Static Moves, though the parallels with sixties psychedelia and late eighties indie are still very strong. Sukilove are songwriters first and stylists second, though the two priorities are pretty close to one another; texture informs mood, mood informs lyrics, lyrics inform tone, tone informs texture. The circle turns perpetually, ignoring fashions in a way that seems unthinkable as you thumb through an issue of the NME.

The thing with the Antwerp sound is that, while it’s easily recognisable once you’ve heard it enough times, it’s very hard to quantify or describe. Probably because it’s not really a “sound” in the usual sense of the word… it’s less a pallet of tones and production approaches than it is a philosophy of creative endeavour that seems to encompass the best elements of both accessible pop and wilfully abstract outsider art. The end result is that individual tunes end up reminding you of very different bands or artists… for example, “Sugareyes” somehow reminds me of Caravan (albeit minus the blunt references to taking magic mushrooms on golf courses and the innocent naivete of their era). I mean, it doesn’t sound like Caravan wrote it (or are playing it), but it has Caravan’s winsome straight-faced air of fantasy about it, if that makes any sense at all (and if you’ve ever heard of Caravan, which – if you’re under forty years of age – you quite probably haven’t).

Sukilove have propped up the middle of Static Moves with what I’d declare to be the best songs of the album. “Choose Your Gods” has the slightly mournful and mysteriously abstract edge that dEUS made so popular, with weird discordant melodies that somehow make perfect sense despite their irregularities, and it’s followed by “Fear”, which features lyrics that might easily have been written by Devin Townsend or some other wild-eyed examiner of the human condition: “we’re all just meat / we’re all just meat / we’re all just meat / … waiting to die”. This bleak nihilism sits strangely well with the restrained weirdness of Sukilove’s music, each lessening the harshness of the other while bolstering its power to seduce and distract.

There are some real oddities in here, too, not least of which is “Teeth Fitness” – two minutes of strange loops and abstract sounds stitched together with no narrative or structure whatsoever. But it’s surprisingly listenable stuff if you can get past the quirkiness, and I think it’s a genuine shame that Sukilove (and the other Antwerp bands) aren’t better known in the UK – they draw on a very English musical tradition, for a start. So while I doubt Static Moves is bound for chart-smashing success any time soon, you could do far worse than give it a listen.