.imp - Headscrambled

.imp

​Headscrambled
self-released; 2017

​3.9 out of 5

By Jamie Robash

I’ve always felt that making loud noise to a somewhat structured melody is all one really needs in order to have a song that one could consider successful or at least a song that has a chance in the world against all the other songs, kind of like the lucky sperm or sometimes sperms which end up becoming the fetus.

Look at the status of rock music et al over the last sixty years, beginning in its infancy with Chuck Berry and try and tell me otherwise. Obviously there will be huge differences in opinion as to whether or not the song is “good” which is of course a matter of taste, only that it has the potential to be more successful because of the way it’s made. 

Enter now the London based three-piece musical collective .imp centered around the singer/songwriter James Hargreaves. The outfit’s first release, Headscrambled uses its opening track “Sex & Power” in just that sort of loud and angular guitar rock formula and pairing it with a melody that has a seductiveness to it, that makes you want to continue to explore what’s going to come next.

What does come next is the slowed down, stripped down slightly clubby “Pull Me Over” which along with its predecessor reminds me quite a bit of Blur in their heyday. Blur is famous for making records whose songs seem at first jaggedly different but then once one listens a few times the songs somehow magically fit together like puzzle pieces. 

The two minute “Quinn” sounds quintessentially Blur-esque like when the band would take time out of crafting perfectly polished pop tunes to jam out a dirty garage punk tune like “Bank Holiday.” Here on “Quinn” we also have in the foreground the prominent Hammond organ which infects the songs on which it is featured with a richness that only the Hammond can provide. 

​Headscrambled is a very honorable debut, but also one that leaves me curious as to the band’s future endeavors into a longer work, which will require a bit more focus and shape than this short and sweet EP. Though this longer work is a challenge which I believe .Imp is up for.

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