THE STICKS are a stripped down garage party band from Brighton. They bash drums, sway on the bass and claw at guitar - often swapping over instruments between songs live - and yelp with melodic abandon and delight. The Sticks were recently dubbed as 'semi-amateur', this may be true. With cheap, unreliable equipment they manage to tease out a cacophony of crashing drums and raucous guitar melodies.

The key elements of the trio's sound are undoubtedly drawn from the rudimentary ideas found in the more inept efforts of mid-sixties teen bands such as The Chimney Sweeps and The Keggs, as well as their modern day equivalents The Black Lips, The Coachwhips or The Hospitals, say.

'THE STICKS'

I'm Wrong | Messing Around

UTR030 | Digipack CD / Double 7" | 20 tracks, 37 mins | November 2009

Finally arriving with their debut self-titled full length, The Sticks have blown the roof off 2007's 10” record and a number of previous singles. Now a trio, the band's sound is more curious than ever. Recorded in an old community hall in Brighton with rudimentary equipment, these songs bounce off the walls with inventive urgency. Thumping deconstructions of 60s riffage give way to more moody bass driven post-punk clatter. These arrangements are certainly crude in nature reflecting the group’s limited abilities as musicians, but it is this unpolished approach that draws the listener into the whole potentiality of the music making process.

The double 7" vinyl comes in a lush two colour printed gatefold sleeve. The digipack CD contains no less than 10 extra tracks!

'SPLIT W / HANDS ON HEADS'

On The Sea | The Floor, The Ground

UTR009 | 10" | 17 tracks, 25 mins | 28 May 2007 | Sold out

The Stick's debut release proper is this split 10" with their friends Hands On Heads. It's a meeting of messed up minds that documents a shared surpise at the expressive freedom pop music can yield, when it's adventurous and playful, and creating it's own thinking party sound.

The spooked lyricism and frantic spontaneity of Hands on Heads' music perfectly complements the heartfelt gooey blues of The Sticks, which leaks from the brake cables of this clattering runaway train of a record. These are two bands writing their own future in their awkward, instinctual yet ever-involving compositions, and that daring bridge of kinship is the rationale for them to share these two sides of wax.

The split is released on green and red dipped vinyl, limited to 500 copies only, and housed within a hand-screened sleeve.