(Valve Records/MGM)

‘Gurge man dishes out some Casiotone garage rock

Although we can’t make a complete generalisation here, you could roughly summarise the two main creative forces of Regurgitator thus: there’s Quan Yeomans, the sonically audacious pop parodist, throwing hardcore, electro-pop, hip hop and Prince funk into the blender. Then there’s Ben Ely, the more straight-ahead punk rocker of the pair, his power pop and Ramones influences at the forefront. Suitably, Ely’s latest project follows a no-frills garage punk format, blended with Korg drum machines and the twin guitar attack of  Steve Bourke and Marihuzka Larenas-Esquivel. There’s a Devo-esque jerkiness to the title track, while the two guitarists bring some pleasantly unexpected psychedelic soloing to the bubblepunk stomp of Slam Dance. The pouting You’re Hot, meanwhile, could be compared to the chantalong dance pop of The Ting Tings. It’s not an intense, ‘significant’ record, and its raw production is a trifle thin sounding, but Transcending Reality is a mostly rollicking and unpretentiously entertaining album, sprinkling elements of old school punk rock, bubblegum chants and a tinge of Neu! precision.

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MATT THROWER

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