Strange Pink’s new single, “My Friend and You”, doesn’t so much walk into the room as kick the door off its hinges and demand you buy it a pint.
From the first filthy throb of Eddie Alan Logie’s bass, you know you’re in for something gloriously scruffy. Sam Forrest’s guitar rasps and scratches like it’s been dragged through a hedge backwards, while Dom Smith’s drums push everything forward with the confidence of someone who knows chaos can, in fact, be highly organised. It’s punk at heart, but there’s a woozy, psychedelic shimmer lurking beneath the grit—as if Sonic Youth decided to try meditation, but then got bored and started a bar fight instead.
The band’s pedigree is nothing to sniff at: Forrest has already proven his knack for noise with Nine Black Alps and Sewage Farm, while Logie and Smith have sharpened their claws across Yorkshire’s underground. Together, they sound like they’ve been waiting for this exact moment to let loose.
And then there’s Smith himself—a drummer who refuses to let cerebral palsy write the script. He’s crawled onto stages, dodged enough wires to make an electrician sweat, and still manages to outplay half the scene. The fact he’s toured internationally and now bashes the skins for Strange Pink is so both inspiring and a pointed reminder that venues could, frankly, make life easier.
“My Friend and You” builds, swells, and finally explodes—gritty, psychedelic, and oddly charming, like a bar brawl conducted by philosophers.
Review by Thomas Imposter