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Artist: Band: King Bathmat
Album: Son of a Nun
CD Review: As their name would suggest, England's King Bathmat is a quirky band to say the least. But their quirks do not come at the expense of musical quality and personal identity: They definitely have a solid foundation and a unique sound which helps breed their idiosyncrasies. Their music shows influences of Bush, the Ramones and a little bit of late Beatles/solo Lennon.

The CD opens with "Not Born 2 Share", an interesting song with a bluesy groove and lounge-style keyboards which bears a resemblance to Tom Jones's "Delilah" which is very slight, but still enough to guarantee mental damage.

Next is "Post Traumatic", a more straight-ahead number with a strong melody line, clever lyrics and a good, REM-influenced rock feel. Finally we have "Uncle Remus", slower and more brooding, showing more lyrical depth and musical understatement (ok, maybe understatement is an exaggeration, but compared to Marilyn Manson, it's understated as heck.)

As I see it, the main things this band needs to work on are getting their own web site and producing a full-length CD which shows more of their musical spectrum. But this little disc definitely caught my attention and I'm looking forward to hearing more.

You can contact King Bathmat at jobassett@lineone.net.