SLEAZE - Push Tuck [7" Test Pressing]

LIMITED EDITION HAND PAINTED SLEEVE

You may have seen their tee-shirts — the ones that say POST PUB KEBAB SHOP GLAM ROCK or SLEAZE PLEAZE.

If you traverse the pub wildlands of south London, you may have witnessed the band themselves, SLEAZE, a unit born of the ramshackle, raucous, hedonistic underground that gave us the likes of Fat White Family, Warmduscher and Fat Dog.

You may even have come across one of their super-limited-edition, lathe-cut singles. Now they have a new one. A double A-side released via Agent Anonyme Recordings featuring “Push Tuck” and “Daffodils.” But this time it’s not limited-edition. It’s their first full release, accompanied by the band’s appearance in Lena Dunham’s new Netflix series Too Much, a story of a fish-out-of-water New Yorker in London.

It’s “Push Tuck” — a swaggering, Dr. Feelgood-meets-Stooges strut — that takes centre stage. Says frontman Dave Ashby, “Push Tuck is our ultimate set-opener. The lyrics are deliberately vague, but also on the money. They describe how you either slot in or break in this world. There’s a nihilistic spin to it.”

He’s not wrong. One line states, “I wanna be forgotten/I ain’t no Johnny Rotten”, while another makes arcane references to smoked salmon. What’s that about? “Because that's literally what my brain sometimes feels like, a bit salty, sort of smoked, a bit of a treat, but not something you’d want every day.”

On the flipside is “Daffodils” — Ashby’s cigarette-chipped, whisky-cracked voice offers the poignant, busted-up narrative of trying to save a doomed relationship with “out-of-date daffodils from Sainsbury’s”. It’s a lo-fi but supremely catchy singalong, despite lyrics that ask, “Will you appreciate my empty gesture/While I self-medicate to ease the pressure?”

“Yes, everything in it happened,” says Ashby, nursing a pint in, of course, a south London pub, “But it was actually Tesco’s – Sainsbury’s just sounded better.”

The song’s self-depreciating, fatalistic ebullience brings to mind a range of artists; Ian Dury at his most ruminative, post-punk poets like Swell Maps, or The Stranglers covering The Kinks’ sunny guitar pop. It began as a bedroom demo, recorded on a Hohner P-100 synth from an Oxfam in Bromley, but has since bloomed into something much more.