CD Review: Trouserdog - How I Became a Sex Pest

Review by Stephen Harvey (A.K.A. DJ Fresh)



Trouserdog have a sound that cannot be easily pigeonholed into any of the thousands of genres and sub genres that there seem to be these days. They have a sound that is both original, but strangely familiar in a lot of ways.

Their live show has always been interesting on the odd occasions I have seen them perform around Stoke on Trent, so I was quite excited when their CD bounced off my living room floor. It seems that the postal service hasn't yet recognised that a padded jiffy bag usually relates to there being something inside that could be fragile. This aside, it was only the jewel case that was shattered and the disc was intact, and ready to scare my wife and children with.

The albums opening track, "Apocalypse Gary Glitter", was enough to hasten my wife to retreat to the safety of the garden. It seems her musical taste has not yet stretched to the humour of convicted paedophiles. I tried to explain the "irony" of the lyrics, but it was already lost on her, and she may never know the full genius of Warren Trousers and his Kettleonian followers.

A very "eighties" feel resonates through the entire album with undertones of such legends as The Fall and New Order being the flavour of the day.

There are not many bands that can easily transfer the humour and energy of playing live to a recording studio, but Trouserdog have managed to achieve this without it ever feeling "too loud" before you are even close to the level of annoying the neighbours.

There are some real gems if you take the time to give this album the respect it deserves and play it a couple of times before deciding. "Badger Watch" (which really is a song about the programme of the same title) and "Death Metal Shopping List" which is about the joys of sharing a studio with a rock band who do their hell raising down the local Tesco Hypermarket. It seems that buying monster munch multipacks is the route to the Antichrist. This is the wit and charisma of the band that is surely worthy of a much larger audience than they are currently enjoying on the live scene.

Overall Trouserdog are far too intelligent to be mainstream and if you're like me you probably prefer it that way anyway.

Favourite tracks:

Apocalypse Gary Glitter

Bourgois Danny

Warehouse Racket

Badger Watch


The album is available via Paypal

£4.99 inc P&P from:

www.myspace.com/trouserdog