BullyBones release debut single I Feel Sorry For You
Released: October 27th 2014
Label: Barnstormer
Name your band after a song by The Birthday Party and you damn well better have some fire in your guts to back it up. BullyBones have that – and some decidedly catchy melodies to complement their evident-enough energy, a little sweetness to offset the sour sweat that soaks so compellingly through their tracks to date.
And for the less punk-inclined listeners out there: sure, a bully bone can also mean a dog chew ‘treat’ made up of a shrivelled bull’s penis. But really, come on. You’re beyond that, aren’t you? So, onwards with the music, shall we?
Which draws its cues from record collections spanning several decades. Having first come together as school friends before realising their band ambitions, the members of BullyBones – today comprising Charlie Pullinger on vocals and guitar; Aaron Lee on guitar; Illy Webster on bass; and Elliot Little on drums – “got serious” in 2012, and haven’t looked back since.
In their own words, the band’s influences span “60 years and several continents”, but there’s an unmistakable British resonance to the tracks that make up their initial missive to the wider world. It’s not exactly small-town boys fighting out into the bigger picture, more the declaration of immediate, easy opportunities extinguished, a local circuit already won – and now’s the time to carry their fervour across to that next, giant step.
Which the double-header of ‘I Feel Sorry For You’ and ‘Deadflower Girl’ certainly feels like: from diminutive beginnings into bold introductions. These are songs that crackle and spark with live commitment, with enthusiasm for more – not of the same, not to recycle influences into a commendable ‘authentic’ sound, or anything like that, but to further bonds and deepen friendships. You know when you hear a band for the first time and they sound like they mean it – and that’s what’s here. Vitriol, certainly, but tempered by an already established pop sensibility, where messages aren’t carried on affronts but by accessibility.
You might catch traces of garage-rockers past in the shadows dancing about the snarls, or sniff out the scent of The Stones when they could move without risking hip replacement surgery. You might, because these bands carried comparable qualities: allies in alignment, aiming at something more than what’s previously been afforded them. Birthday, Christmas, piss-up for no particular reason: whatever the occasion, BullyBones have come to party, and only a bleedin’ idiot would doubt their potential.
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