THE LEECHES: Suck

The Leeches

Suck

© 2002 British Medical Records

CD IN STOCK. ORDER NOW. Will ship immediately.

Female-fronted punk-art prodigies from London; make way for quirky bliss.

tracks

1 Consequences
2 Um...
3 Trailer Trash
4 Slice Up
5 Obedience
6 Fuck It
7 Hey
8 Flash
9 Dangling Man
10 Worms

notes

The Leeches first crawled out of their respective stagnant ponds at the beginning of 2001, brought together by a grubby little advert in Loot. Having written 14 songs in 10 weeks they then began annoying everybody else by playing them very loud in public.

As time went on they found their own unique sound - a blending of art-punk and darkly cruel humour that is best listened to well away from sharp objects and sheer precipices.

Having released 3 homemade (literally) singles they decided to take the plunge and knock out an album (for no other reason than that they'd organized an American tour for themselves and needed something to promote). The result was "Suck", 10 loud songs to murder your friends to.

The good ol? US of A took an amazing shine to our heroes, a shower of accolades (& then becoming a country-wide Top 10 college radio band!) soon had The Leeches realizing that maybe being bloody-minded, charmingly foul-mouthed and persistently stubborn could, after all, still work in the modern world.

Reviews comparing them to The Cramps, Pixies, Sonic Youth, Wire, The Damned and Blondie soon came flooding in; breathing such heady vapours did not, however, go to their heads.Instead The Leeches have delved deeper, written some even nastier songs and submerged into their studio to spit up some bile with sharper tongues and deadlier licks.

reviews

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  • fun punk rock music for your listening pleasure
    author: nofi magazine

    More silly, fun punk rock music for your listening pleasure. I got this CD a while ago and listened to it like 5 times in a row and thought to myself how much I love it. Then I forgot about it until now. I just listened to it again and I still love it. It's just fun loud music to dance to. I love Lizzy Wood's vocals. She is very british and very sexy. The cover photo brings lots of questions to mind, like did they catch any weird diseases from that green swamp water...yuk. My favorite song on this is "Flash" and I also really like "Worms" '...nobody likes me...everybody hates me...' you know the rest. Buy this one for the next time you play in the dirt.

  • They do their own thing and it sounds terrific
    author: Mark Prindle

    The Weeds BLOW! The Seeds STINK! And the Leeches SPIT BLOOD! That's today's biology lesson. The Leeches hail from Britain and play what they call a "high-energy brand of twisted anglo-ironic artpunk." Interestingly enough, that's not a bad description! Their guitarist Andy Cooper double-tracks the crankle and fuzz with raw electrical jankling and bashing as a female vocalist toys with losers' emotions by jumping from cute-and-detached to bitter-as-a-schoolmarm in the time it takes most women to have sex when Mark Prindle is around. I don't mean to brag, but it's true - any time a woman has sex with me, we're finished pretty quickly and I can make it home in time for Tic-Tac-Dough. Don't thank me now! The closest approximation of a comparison that I'd care to make for the Creative Leeches is that they SORT of have a sound kind of a LITTLE comparable a TAD to The Fall's more reverbed material - with the crankly, "occasionally bordering on rockabilly but too creative to be rockabilly" sound and style. And in 28 minutes, your heart will demonstrate appreciation for numerous genres torn apart at their hands, including happy midtempo smart-tones (their heavenly tinny/acoustic/guitar solo anthem "Hey" is even better than the Pixies song of the same name!), brash punkers (you name 'em, you got 'em! I suppose that sort of follows though, doesn't it. How could you name them if you don't own the CD. Odds are you haven't heard them on the radio or "The Real World"TV.) and darker mood pieces like "Obedience" with its queasy stomach-churning low-end vomit swoops tempting your tummy with the taste of nuts and honey ? it's a honey of an "O" - it's "O"-bedience. The Leeches are one of the most consistently smart and entertaining new batches of songwriter/musicians that I've hapt across in quite some time - and they're not even part of that insane hardcore punk/metal screaming movement I keep talking about all the time. Any fan of The Fall or early Gang of Four or Killing Joke should buy a copy of Suck today. They have a classic double-guitar hyperactive artpunk sound (I can't BELIEVE they only have one guitarist - these are songs that sound like they were written by TWO guitarists! But it's just one guy!!!! ONE GUY!!!!!), but without sounding like a copy of ANYBODY. They do their own thing and it sounds terrific. A high 8 from me! And I'm not just saying that because one of the guys likes my web site a lot!

  • Suck may be the title, but it's a far cry from the contents
    author: PunkRocks.net

    I sadly missed this fem-fronted UK four-piece on their recent visit to the states; a fuck of a bummer indeed, as The Leeches shell out a modernist twist the heady days of 'Urgh! A Music War' and the British art-punk movement. It's all Lyceum Ballroom and primal skronk with a massive heap of Au Pairs' sexuality, a dash of Slits raw funkiness wrapped around a catchy, yet melancholic early Echo & The Bunnymen/Gang of Four guitar parade. Vocal offers and rejections; sass with substance fuels 'Suck'. Some early B-52's-ish wordplay, and even a smidgen of early Wall of Voodoo (a taste of L.A. on 'Trailer Trash'). It all adds up to a tip-top listen in my book. With the recent smattering of wave revivalists and post-punk idealists, The Leeches should be getting shouts across the pond in no time. 'Suck' may be the title, but it's a far cry from the contents. A band to watch on their next venture to the states, and a welcome addition to the discerning record buff who, like myself, longs for the days of New Wave Theater and the ambiguous excitement brought on by punk's multi-faceted infancy stage. No need to classify, other than to say swimmingly solid. Check out www.theleeches.com to see about scoring a copy.

  • The Leeches' sound is like no other.
    author: No Ripcord

    Running at just over 28 minutes, The Leeches Suck album may be short, but don't for one minute assume that sweetness is on the menu. At a time when most bands insist on moaning about unrequited love and feelings of inadequacy, The Leeches' lyrical themes resemble one big, fat lungful of fresh air.The Leeches' delightfully spiteful lyrics are just one of their many obvious strengths; the band's economical-yet-fiery guitar lines are impressive throughout, and the heavily accented female vocals ensure that The Leeches' sound is like no other. I don't know if Suck will stand up to repeated listening - particularly as the band's lyrical bite (no pun intended) provides much of the initial excitement - but one thing's for sure - I'm going to enjoy finding out. I suggest you do the same.

  • if the Gang Of Four had Kim Deal....
    author: Smashing Transistors

    Velvet drapes, dingy rooms, cigarette holders, schooling, discontentment and analysis of society's ill loom large. There's a weird melodic dischord going on like Sleater-Kinney meets Wire or if the Gang Of Four had Kim Deal in their band.

  • The Leeches are one of those clever, intelligent punk bands
    author: The Music Tap

    The Leeches are one of those clever, intelligent punk bands. Something that is typical of English garage bands and very unlike "most" American punk bands that do a poor emulation of "tongue in cheek" punk using thoughtless lyrics over three or four chord overused riffs. Check out a couple of these ditties and bounce off the walls for while.

  • this is tasty trash
    author: Aiding & Abetting

    Imagine Blondie reincarnated as a Brit garage band. Lizzie Wood does a whale of a job playing catty sex kitten at the mic, and the boys in the band service her capably. While plenty of the lyrics are clever, there's very little subtlety to this disc. Wood is into put downs, but her style is more Eddie Izzard than Oscar Wilde. Not necessarily a bad thing, mind you. You've gotta dig the groove the folks lay down--it's got a veneer of faux sophistication laid over a slowly rotting core. A lot of folks will no doubt find this annoying, but what the hell. I'm a sucker for anything that satirizes continental condescension. Oh yeah, a lot of this is a joke. I'm sure there are sincere moments, but they are few and far between. Mostly, this is just tasty trash. Just my style.

  • quirkiness and humor make it more original
    author: bulletproof popemobile

    I gotta say that this CD took me back to the days of Babes In Toyland and Sonic Youth back in the early 90's. It's that same avant-punk sound, only London's own The Leeches add a little bit of quirkiness and humor to make it sound a little more original and enjoyable to listen to. A fun CD to check out, and it just brought back so many memories of other bands I liked (and still like) from the past I listened to. Would love to hear more from this band in the future.

  • The Leeches manage to live up to their own hype
    author: adequacy.net

    Perhaps the most important thing to understand about The Leeches is that they're British - disturbingly so. Like the Teletubbies. Fronted by the talented Lizzi Wood, they claim to attack "the establishment" in a sexually repressed, embittered blaze that leaves you confused and annoyed, hating the world and possibly yourself. Yeah, that's a pretty standard description of punk; yet The Leeches manage to live up to their own hype. Suck, which comes as the band's first full-length release on their own D.I.Y. label Medical Records, finds the band with a definite grasp on their identity as musicians. The Leeches follow old punk ideals, pepper them with rockabilly, and slap on some disquieting images to create a unique brand of avant-artpunk that is deliciously fun. Hollow, dinky beats thump relentlessly under fuzzy guitars; bored, monotonous female vocals seduce and disturb at the same time. The anthem-esque chorus of "Fuck It," a jangly, almost radio-friendly little ditty, tumbled in my head most of the week ("Fuck it, you're shit / I've had enough of it), and "Slice Up," an ode to uxoricide in which Wood sexily cooes "Slice up your wife tonight" to her married lover, is reminiscent of The Pixies more disturbed moments. The Leeches also play around with politics a bit in a twisted, nonconfrontational way on "Hey," but the majority of the album is artistic ramblings, the flotsam of a troubled mind. Suck is so refreshing in that it stands out from all the shitty art-poise bands flooding even the mainstream market right now. They aren't The Strokes; nobody's daddy paid to produce their album, and you probably won't see them on MTV anytime soon. They're talented, marketable, and - amazingly (for a D.I.Y. punk band) - can even play their instruments well. Suck won't lead you to any earth-altering revelations, but how many albums really do? Its fun and even a little sexy, and that's all that counts. - Whitney, 11/11/02

  • This band pretty much represents everything I stand for.
    author: ukbands.net

    The Leeches are a raw four-piece garage-punk band, with killer licks from a Les Paul and shrieking vocals from a petit stick of dynamite. Their sound immediately reminded me of the Sonic Youth and The Ramones. This band pretty much represents everything I stand for since I began writing these reviews. They've recorded their own album, in a studio that sits in the top floor of their house, which they bought to avoid eviction threats from playing their music too loud in a rented flat. They've organised a tour of the Northeast corridor of the US, without a manager or an agent, by calling and asking, sending their music, and making it happen. They'll sleep wherever they can, eat with the proceeds from selling their CDs and have a hell of a laugh with the yanks. That's all it takes these days, belief in yourself and willingness to work.

  • Leeches spit out a brand of punk that few do well save the Cramps
    author: Independent music review

    I was going to update yesterday, but this album was way too perfectly suited for Halloween, so I waited. Timing is everything, you know. And I'm glad I did. The Leeches spit out a Grand Guignol brand of rockabilly punk that few do well save the Cramps (and the Damned, but they're sort of their own category). Suck feels just like it should: Like the sonic equivalent of being bathed in gunk-filled water sprayed out of a rusted showerhead in the crappiest mold-stained single-wide in the crappiest trailer park on the bayou. This is clearly what the Leeches were aiming for -- they even have a song called "Trailer Trash," in which the slatternly-bored voice of singer Lizzi Wood recounts a day in the life of the Wal-Mart masses -- so good on them for hitting it with an almost disturbing sense of veracity (The Leeches themselves aren't bayou trailer trash, despite the song and their album cover, if for no other reason that they're from London). The fun-filled creepiness doesn't end there, kiddies. Just in time for Halloween, I'm proud to present "Slice Up," a paean to spousal murder, in which Wood, ever the troublemaker, suggests to her married lover that they drug the wife and part her out like beef (I'm sure in real life Wood is a delightful person who never misses a prayer meeting). The song would probably be more disturbing if Wood's weren't so flirty and cootchie-coo in the song ("I'm waiting," she coos, as if tapping her adorable little feet for her lover to make with the chainsaw), and if the song itself didn't sound like a soundtrack snippet from an especially cheesy Z-grade slasher flick from the early 60s. Obviously, Suck isn't for everyone, but then, outside of oxygen, what is? I'm enjoying the hell out of it, and be be quite honest, any band that can take a song about going down to the garden and eating worms (album closer "Worms") and turn it both into a kiss-off to annoying people and a stompable romp through the mosh pit gets my vote for a band that's got the goods. Suck definitely doesn't. As far as Halloween trick or treats go, it's in the "treat" category.

  • These Leeches can drain our blood anytime.
    author: Time Out New York

    The Leeches are a buzzy and fuzzy band from London whose album, Suck, is endearingly dinky. The Leeches have art-punk poise,speedy songs and goofy strain. These Leeches can drain our blood anytime.

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