- Regis and Surgeon's debut album after two decades together fine-tunes their live sets into a dubby, post-punk snarl.
- When Surgeon and Regis put out records as British Murder Boys, it feels more like a happening than a regular release. That's probably because a good chunk of their widely available output is live recordings, and even their studio releases are fundamentally live-sounding, the result of two people working in tandem to combine serrated Birmingham techno with dub and post-punk. While Regis or Surgeon records have never been that dense to begin with, there's something lithe and spiky about British Murder Boys, whose tracks can cut through a DJ mix like a martial artist flawlessly disarming a soldier armed to the teeth. Active Agents And House Boys, the duo's debut album after over 20 years together, sharpens this attack to a knife-edged point: imagine if Suicide started out on Regis's Downwards label instead of in Downtown New York, and you're close to the sound of British Murder Boys in 2024.
Up til now the duo's defining statement was their barnstorming 2019 live album Fire In The Still Air, recorded live at Berlin Atonal. The material on Active Agents And House Boys follows on nicely. From opener "The Set Up Man" onwards, there's a barrage of arpeggiated synth flurries and fragmented kick patterns, with the slap-back echo on Regis's vocals conjuring images of saliva splattering the recording console—a nightmare version of Elvis Presley classic The Sun Sessions. The album peaks early with "Killer I Said," whose slower pace and almost psychotic vocal delay creates a swirling wall of sonic flames—you can almost feel the heat as it builds.
Part of the duo's appeal is how the songs build and intensify, turning an otherwise repetitive techno track like "It's In The Heart" into a dynamic exercise of distorted drums and haywire arpeggios. And "Keep It Down" abuses the filter envelope on the synth lead, squeezing out tortured textures and squelches before sharp, high-pitched shrieks pierce the soundscape like a forcible letting off steam. They even approach something like a fully fledged song with "We Will Show You," which features musclebound EBM melodies and Regis barking and chattering throughout, with pacing that mirrors a dancer breathing in and out. It's a welcome reprieve from the rest of the album's constant ratcheting up. The album can blur together over the course of its hour runtime, but the music is usually too face-melting—or captivatingly destructive—to be boring.
While Active Agents And House Boys slows the aerodynamic rush of the duo's live sets, it reveals a new dimension to their work: something you could almost call songwriting. Some of these tracks, like "Killer I Said," might get stuck into the susceptible techno fan's head. Regis's voice is more prominent than ever before, and his grumble cuts through these tracks like a fiery street preacher, as snares and basslines explode like paroxysms of hellfire around him. Even with an approach like this, the music is hardly single-minded or macho. Instead, it's almost funky, with the delay and repetition of dub employed like hypnotically flexing muscles. The masculinity expressed isn't toxic—it's camp, in its own way, which has always been key to the duo's over-the-top image and music. Once you remember that it's for dancing, not just moshing, it's pretty damn fun.
Tracklist01. I Saw The Set Up Man
02. Killer I Said
03. This Is A Calling
04. What You Hide
05. You Said You Want To
06. Keep It Down
07. It's In The Heart
08. We Will Show Yo