06 December 2024

CHIFF CHAFFS – Scratching My Mind (2024, 12” Trash Wax)

RELEASE INFO:

Label: Trash Wax

Format: 12”, Limited Edition, Black Vinyl (300 copies total)

Format: 12”, Limited Edition, Purple Green Vinyl (300 copies total)

Release Date: April 2024

Here’s a surprisingly good and tasty 12-inch by a relatively new band called Chiff Chaffs, a Garage-Punk-Surf-Rock n’ Roll quartet (guitar, bass, organ, drums) from Belgium! So far, Chiff Chaffs have released one LP album (“Up To No Good”, 2022 Trash Wax) and two 7” Singles (“Filthy Kicks”, 2021 Hopvil Records, and “Twist De La Lys”, 2023 Hyperloop Records). “Scratching My Mind” is their latest number, a 12-inch vinyl mini album (as it contains only 4 tracks) which is released through Trash Wax label. Label’s press release explains all the fun and craziness that surrounds this band in just a few lines:

“On this, our 2nd release with the incredible Chiff Chaffs, they take you on a real roller coaster of a trip, an incredible musical assault on your ears the likes of which haven’t been heard since The Vibes launched their incredible 12″ of ‘The Inner Wardrobes Of Your Mind’ way, way back in 1985!

Staggering through a kaleidoscopic wall of Trash… Starting with an opening reminiscent of ‘Sleepy Hollow’ (The Last Words) it then leads you down the rabbit hole and drags you through a mind-bending series of highs & lows which leave you really wanting more… A genuine ‘Suzy Creamcheese’ moment if ever there was one! … 10.30 minutes of glorious delirium. On the flipside, you get 3 more eerie tracks of haunting Trash… Chiff Chaff stylee!”

The first side is occupied by just a single track, “Scratching My Mind”… It starts in a very lysergically trippy way and sounds like a torturously stoned mutated version of The Last Words’ “Sleepy Hollow” (from 1966), soon the track starts a flirt with 60s trash-horror moody garage, then the haunted tremolo Fuzz takes over leading the song to a total metamorphosis, a speedy garage-punk rocker, chaotic, fuzzy, becoming a creep-a-delic marvelous tune coming straight out of the Grave or maybe from “Back To The Grave”? For the last 3 minutes of the track, the scenery transferred into an isolated, dark, mysterious circus where probably all clowns, acrobats, and so on… have turned to Zombies! Wow! What an incredible amazing fucking track! On side ‘B’ there are 3 tracks. The opening “He Had To Go” is a haunted-like trash-garage-rockabilly tune that Screaming Lord Sutch would love to have sing! “Long Island Iced Tea” is a noisy and trashy (of course) garage-punk instro with a disturbingly good people-noisy-bar background atmos that gives you the feel of a real live recording… or maybe it is a live recording after all… The last song is called “Song For Lexy”, it is dark, cold, and windy with a creepy (and haunting as always) atmosphere, a slow tempo tune almost like a lost cowboy ballad song flooded by some wondrous fuzz guitar flirting with alt-dark Americana (or whatever…) Recommended for wild parties and ideal for disturbing the neighbors… Grab it! TimeLord Michalis