Cock And Balls

It would appear by common consensus that Cock E.S.P. are twatting about. No-one seems quite sure, except the Cocks themselves, if they're laughing with us or at us. Actually, when they're pitching electrical hardware into the audience for the majority of their 5 minutes sets, probably at us.

Personally, I like the bastards.

Let's deal with the downsides first, and there are plenty. Aerial assault by food mixer aside, their 20 second maximum bursts of noise, screaming and bleeping are sometimes rubbish, sometimes interspersed with child-like vocals set against an overtly sexual pretext, and they make no attempt to contextualise their noise away from the base stupidity they foster. There's nothing big or clever about it, and they're the first to admit it, before donning a stuffed animal head and dry humping an amp.

But I don't believe them. Not completely. Amongst the fog of pointlessness are sparks that transcend the noise for the sake of noise pretense. The concise blasts, in the same vein as certain metals, are all you need to know, before moving onto the next one. Let's not waste three minutes doing the same thing over and over again, let's do something different. And when it's good, it is big, and it might be clever. When it's not? Well, it's only 15 seconds long.

I could well be wrong though. So I'll leave it up to you. These five tracks are taken from Greatest Dicks 3 - The Best And Worse of Cock E.S.P. 2001-2003 (20 minutes long, 40 tracks including a 4 minute remix and a 6 minute interview), and summarise all I like about the Cock. I've put up the Burning Star Core remix as well, for anyone looking for a bit of prolonged exposure. It's also rather good.

There are a load more downloads on their website, which is also the best place to make a purchase, and they've got a Myspace. They rarely perform outside of america, and to be honest, that might be a good thing. I'm not as quick as I used to be.

Cock E.S.P. - Noise Communes Work In Theory, But Not In Practice

Cock E.S.P. - Yankin' The Powercord

Cock E.S.P. - Shut Up Sometimes feat. Eugenics Council

Cock E.S.P. - Dirty Cocks

Cock E.S.P - Smash 'Em, Crash 'Em

Cock E.S.P. - Cock's Promise (Burning Star Promise Remix)