Krupps

Reviews

Krupps Sport for All cassette

KRUPPS, from Nottingham, play an often fun sort of music (primitive post-punk) and bring good cheer as a live band (or did, to me, when I saw them), so it’s stuck with me just how miserable-sounding the album-length tape they did before this one, which is their third in total, was. Sport for All turns the dial back a bit towards merriment, helped perhaps by songs playing heavily ironic tribute to Peter Shilton (retired football goalkeeper/hero to Nottingham people of a certain age/unwavering supporter of the Conservative Party/moron) and Saddam Hussain (you know). Alan Martin is a great post-Mark E. Smith off-the-dome ranter waiting to be discovered by a wider audience, and the KRUPPS engine room kicks out just the right kind of stumbling dirge jams for his tale-telling—COUNTRY TEASERS, BOGSHED, pre-album PAVEMENT kinda thing. Real people music, and real great.

Krupps Prospect Street cassette

Unlikely to be confused with DIE KRUPPS by anyone who takes time to listen, KRUPPS are from Nottingham and feature one of that city’s great BLOODY HEAD on guitar. Prospect Street is their second album-length tape, packaged like a cassingle (ask a Gen X-er), and it matches its predecessor, 2019’s Players, for het-up ranting shit-fi. These songs tend to be notably slower and dirgier than before, though, with the three musicians’ jangly slop energy reshaped into a murky, detuned plod. Similarly, where vocalist Alan Martin once sounded like someone unloading several years’ worth of frustration inside 25 minutes, here his demeanour contributes to a beaten-down and frankly depressing sounding album. Let me be clear—this is all good gravy to my ears, and by accident or design KRUPPS have found a sound both singular and fucked. Maybe think CERAMIC HOBS meets NO TREND as shorthand to try and grab your interest?