With ‘Condition’, The Spectres Tap Monty Python Inspiration

Monty Python's John Cleese has inspired many artists including this graffiti artist in Lisbon, photo: Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

The British alternative rock band The Spectres drop the 9-track Condition album on March 10 on the Sonic Cathedral label. Lyricist and frontman Joe Hatt hints at some ribald hilarity as inspiration, naming one song after the great film comedy A Fish Called Wanda, written by and starring Monty Python genius John Cleese (along with Jaime Lee Curtis and Kevin Kline). Record Collector says this Spectre effort, following 2015’s Dying, shows the band “grown keener to operate their guitars for more “experimental” purposes than that hackneyed, audience-pandering function of actually playing them.”

[LEFT: 2015’s Dying wasn’t even as dark as Condition.]

That’s sort of what Monty Python did to comedy, right? It’s light and experimental but let it sink in and you’ve got dark times hitting you in fuzzed up inarticulate waves. Sonic Cathedral and The Spectres may be the best literal name match up in the record business. There is a lot of worship at the altar of sound here — noise, sound, and melodies screaming for daylight — often denied.