You don’t often get an album that sounds like it was recorded before yesterday yet that’s exactly what “Splashed” by Mad Painter is. An album that, whilst of this time, sounds like it is of another, nearly forgotten, time and place.
I shall explain. Mes enfants, there was a time when rock music had evolved into a heady mix of musical complexity and intelligent, often poetic, lyrics and those were indeed the halcyon days of tour buses and substance abuse but, lest we forget, the music was always the key to the door. Now, with the music released from an extended stay in rehab, we are currently blessed with the soggy squibs of hard rock and death/melodic/udon noodle metal but, fortunately for us, we now have these seventeen songs from Mad Painter that throw all the stylistic keys from those rose tinted days of yesteryear into the Ikea brandy glass and start up some serious organ swinging.
The lyrics betray an acerbic sense of humour with some decidedly theatrical overtones taking these songs well past the showtune stage and right on into the ironworks. You can’t pull off songs like these without some serious musical backup and that is indeed present with all those crochets and quavers – cheesy, of course – being knitted into the kind of sordidly syncopated sweater that is not just for Christmas.
I’d call “Splashed” diffidently quirky and, in a way, this album is like all those Rick Wakeman albums that you got for much cheapness from the local charity shop. You know that it isn’t trendy to like them but no rational person could ignore the fact that the music contained therein is both clever and entertaining. Boom, boom, pass the bong as the fox used to say.
Best song: “Samurai”
Verdict: Amuses the ears longtime.