Another New York act that I just adore, this lot stepped up their game recently with a brilliant single on Terrible Records called ‘In Love And Alone’ – culled from their debut album, it was one of the strongest guitar tracks of the past 12 months.
This track ‘On Location’ has an ecstatic, driving melody that pushes and pulls in all the right directions. Like all great garage anthems, from The Troggs to The Buzzcocks to The White Stripes, it serves to annihilate, and is a full-bodied gasp of trailblazing, chugging and relentless guitars.
“I remember writing it in a hotel room in Glasgow in late 2014,” says singer John Eatherly of the track. “I was very frustrated, feeling like different people wanted different things from me. The song is centred on a fictional character, but it’s also a reminder to myself to not give a fuck what others think when I know I’ve got something.”
The best moments come in the three choruses, when the normally placid frontman almost completely loses it. Sounding more seething and exasperated each time, it serves as a lesson in the kind of stuffy punk frustration that made Elvis Costello so compelling back in the day, and not least because the rest of the band behind Eatherly manage to top even his burgeoning, yelping nihilism in the thrilling breakdown and subsequent ‘A Day In The Life’-style build two-thirds of the way through the track.
Strangely, considering everything else that’s going on in it, what ‘On Location’ sounds like is the perfect album opener. But then again, so did Public Access’ TV’s previous track. And perhaps the one before. Maybe they’re on to something? Public Access TV are one of a number of bands including Crystal Castles, Spring King, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Suede, Mystery Jets and Blossoms confirmed to play the NME Awards Shows 2016 with Austin, Texas next month.
They play London’s Birthdays on February 25th, supported by fellow up’n’comers Misty Miller and Strange Bones
The Fat Angel Sings 