British Murder Boys: Active Agents and House Boys LP

Many, many years into their thing, Surgeon (Anthony Child) and Regis (Karl O’Connor) finally unveil their debut album as British Murder Boys, two decades on from their 'Learn Your Lesson' debut for Counterbalance in 2003. For what feels like a lifetime, British Murder Boys have been at the bleeding edge of techno, both with their solo works during the ‘90s, and since their fortuitous fusion on 2003’s ‘Learn Your Lesson’ and ‘Don’t Give Way to Fear’ set the course for early ‘00s industrial techno. Despite only issuing a handful of releases since reforming for a (sadly, thwarted) Blackest Ever Black show in 2011, they’ve arguably become poster babs and elder statesmen for the scene, with Surgeon pursuing modular diversions whilst Regis has pushed Downwards down some curious, brilliant alleys, beside his own pursuit of swingeing broken techno rhythms. With ‘Active Agents and House Boys’, they re-fuse as BMB to follow their noses for a sexed-up, cantankerous sound forged in the image of febrile ‘90s House of God sessions, that speaks directly to contemporary floors with tuffest industrial techno girders. Regis prowls on Surgeon's serpentine synthlines and a restless undertow of kicks with a ravenous lust throughout the set. Beginning tensely reserved on ‘I Saw the Set Up Man’, we hear Karl’s punk urges come into play on the dubbed-out stepper ‘Killer I Said’, before they really commit to the pound with ‘This is a Calling’, ratcheting and focussing the energy into classic, pendulous templates with ‘It’s What You Hide’, and tilting into all out hardcore techno glazed with Karl’s spunky vox on ‘You Said You Want To’, thru the helter skelter arp escalation of ‘Keep It Down’, a hollow-tip bullet ‘It’s in the Heart’, and the hot-blooded meat motors of the closing couplet ‘We Will Show You’ and ‘Now, This is You’.