[http://hairgrowthrecords.bigcartel.com/ // https://hairgrowthrecords.bandcamp.com/album/inventory]
Within this collection of songs is an audio clip called "Inventory", which is only nineteen seconds in length, and it is of a man naming off items and then saying prices for them. I'm not sure where this audio clip is taken from exactly, but I feel like it is from some movie that I know and just cannot think of right away. As opposed to constantly rewinding the cassette, I decided to listen to it on repeat via Bandcamp until something jogged my memory and then this little box came up that said it was basically either time to pay or I could no longer play. That was the first time I had ever seen something like that and when I turned down the request for $2 for the download (Because, hey, I have the cassette) it made this little heart image break.
As much as I love and use Bandcamp, I felt like this was a pretty cheap move by them. I'm not sure Hair Growth Records was in on it (Probably not), but if you can't stream things for free on Bandcamp then let's just throw it all away right now. Granted, I may have pressed play more times than most people but it's not like I'm wearing out one song as this was a mere nineteen second clip. What confused me the most though was the picture of Snarf (I am screen-grabbing it to post here) if only because it is the newest version of him, from the most recent animated series, and it is also a toy that I have, which is strange to me to see, as if someone is spying in my house or something, you know?
Regardless of that- which I consider to be a Bandcamp/digital issue that if you buy this cassette you shouldn't have because, well, you'll be listening to the cassette and not bothering with Bandcamp. "Inventory" begins in a sort of Brit-rock way with elements of punk to the song. There are really solid guitar riffs in here that channel both the fuzzy and the psychedelic. I can't come up with a specific band to compare this with at any given point, but I like to think of it as being similar to The Vines and At-the-Drive-In at times.
Though there is a song where the vocals seem to become distant which reminds me a lot of The Doors (Think "The End") but then the frantic bass lines perhaps more closely resemble something like math rock. I do feel that there is some sort of Cheap Trick meets Sex Pistols blend here, though I find it to be more along the lines of Cheap Trick doing a cover of a Sex Pistols song if that makes sense (but still trying to bring out that little bit of attitude that the Sex Pistols had but perhaps Cheap Trick did not)
While I can hear something like U2's "New Year's Day" song only in a much better way (I still don't mind old U2 in the sense of what I used to record off the radio onto cassettes, but their new stuff is torture) and there are just clean guitar riffs. Then we have songs also with a surf/garage feel to them, which brings out the Tora Tora Torrence. I also feel the need to point out that some of these bass lines have a sort of spooky feel to them, which reminds me of TSOL for various reasons but mostly because they do have that old school punk rock sound to them that I do so enjoy.
A unique take on the mixture of rock n roll and punk, with psych thrown in but not always, Disappearing People have managed to take sounds that I can't typically place for lack of comparisons (See: The Mumzees review) and turn them into something else, something exciting and new, and I can't even begin to compare that which is in comparison with that which I already cannot compare. If that doesn't make any sense it's okay. Just know that this is somewhere between rock n roll and punk and it is well worth your listening to while you drive around with the top down on your convertible or whatever it is the cool kids are into these days.
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