Review Summary: Sloppy, lo-fi experimental music that only becomes more annoying the more you listen to it
During the late 1970’s, industrial as a music genre found itself in full swing in the UK. Artists began to appear left and right, creating odd tones that either scared you or peaked your interests in the genre. One of the more obscure experimental groups to come out of this new-found musical climate was Come, and band that would contain members that would later form influential projects such as
Whitehouse and
Foetus.
Come is a very odd band, to say the least. Their 1979 debut
Rampton is essentially a mix of early industrial experimentation and punk rock attitude and spite, giving the record a confusing, albeit interesting vibe to it. The production values are very poor, giving the instrumentation a flimsy, cheap tone to it. The guitars squeal and hiss in an annoying manner and the synthesizers sound like they were toys marketed for young children. The vocals mostly consist of aimless, obnoxious wailing, which gets very old the second they’re introduced.
If there was one word I would use to describe
Rampton, it would be “sloppy”. The way the messy guitars layer the overly tight synths on “Come Sunday” practically ruin the flow of the song, and the odd vocals only makes the track even worse. Even when the two instruments are perfectly aligned in tracks such as “Sex”, the overall tone the track gives is unbearably tangled, and just like many other tracks on the album, the vocals completely ruin any positive aspects the song could of had to offer.
However, that’s not to say the entire recording is all bad. The opener “The Prats” actually uses the album’s messiness to it’s advantage. By layering a backwards guitar loop with the wailing vocals, the track actually ends up creating this strangely mesmerizing groove that is just as unsettling as it is humorous. The instrumental “Rampton 2” shows off a nasty, noisy guitar riff that grows heavier with each second of the clock, and the untitled hidden track is a haunting, violent number that is layered with screams of anguish, making for an incredibly bleak ending for the album.
Overall,
Rampton is an album that hasn't aged well at all. While there are some interesting ideas to be found here, the annoying vocals ruin any sort of mood that the sloppy instrumentation intended to create, and the poor production values only makes the album much more of a chore to listen to. It’s an intriguing listen for fans of bands such as
Whitehouse, but in the end, the record’s replay value is very limited.
