A sign of our times perhaps? Five songs reeking of the ghosts of music past and delivered in a box wrapped in a curiously diffident form of minimalism should not really merit any serious consideration even in these days of musical underachievement and yet Moderate Rebels have managed to turn the five songs that make up their EP “Proxy” into more than the sum of the derivative parts.
All of the trendy boxes are unsurprisingly ticked and, in the best post punk tradition, absolutely none of the virtuoso boxes are ticked yet Moderate Rebels are more than merely too cool for school, college or even university. The repetition that powers each song is near hypnotic and, even though you will be convinced that you already have all the riffs in your hipster record collection, it would take a super strong mind to resist the urge to add all of this EP to your playlist for today. Not your iPod playlist either but one that goes out through those big speakers that you got from your brother who was once a DJ to, yeah and verily, broadcast the venomously understated “Rename/Rebrand” or, perhaps, “Knight Time” to the seething masses seeking release from their very own supersized mediocrity.
I would like to think that Moderate Rebels are the work of some cunning power crazed maestro looking for a fast buck but the truth is that Moderate Rebels have instead captured the sound of the streets inside their “Proxy” EP. The revolution that never will be now has a soundtrack.
The EP is available from Bandcamp.