tab-d are a maverick Manchester based post punk pop/noise project who sound like Wire if they embraced blues scuzz.
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Grooving on an incessant keyboard bass line this is a kinda Motorik blues meets Wire on the new track ‘Get Smarter’, on Half Edge Records.
Driven by Andy Yates’ bass synth loop with colourful modulations. Mark Greer’s melodic slide guitar gets dirty, angry ..almost out of control. It’s unleashed alongside heavy rounds of Boz Hayward’s fuzz guitar. There are lyrics lamenting feelings of being overwhelmed and sleep deprived in the city. (The accompanying evocative video reflects these feelings of over-stimulation in flickering, quick-fire snaps of Manchester and Salford). The slide melody and four notes twanged on guitar – are quieter passages with Clive Mellor’s bluesy harmonica and a distant cimbalom background adding a Barry/Morricone-esque filmic atmosphere.
Reflecting modern times, this mini epic, like a compacted alternative to Hendrix’s ‘Machine Gun’, is shell-shockingly good.
(in March 2026 Louder Than War are putting in their first festival – tickets and details here)
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