Fight Like Apes

Giving us a quirky new-wave punk with equal cut of humour and aggression, Fight Like Apes are emerging with tempestuouly bolstered songs built on synth and digitised fuzz over driving bass lines and tight punk beats, and are easily one of the most promising punk bands to come out of Dublin for quite some time.

Leading off with the line 'I wanna cut you with glass...' early flagship song 'lend me your face' is a piece of punk brilliance. Led by the semi-psychotic female vocals of May Kay, which flit from a sweetness in anger and effortless tease to sheer loutish angst, they've got abundance of adrenalin.


Although defiantly new-wave punk, the majority of their influences seem to lie in the indie-rock and shoegaze genres, with the likes of Pavement, Yo La Tengo, My Bloody Valentine and Chapterhouse listed off in their mainstay of influences. I hear everything from Patti Smith to Sonic Youth in Fight Like Apes, but they're not a band I would comfortably nail with any such 'sounds like' tag - and that in itself is surely a sign of a band doing something special.

They've three independently produced demo tracks currently streamable from their myspace page, including the afore-mentioned 'lend me your face', plus tracks 'jake summers' and 'battlestations'. I'll edge towards 'battlestations' as my favourite of the three, but all are quite strong. A number of gigs are lined up over the coming month in Dublin, Cork and Belfast, with details to be found on their myspace page.

Related Links:

http://www.myspace.com/fightlikeapesmusic

http://artists.cpu.ie//bands/1545/