Since 1996, Andrew Weatherall and Keith Tenniswood, under the guise of the Two Lone Swordsmen, have been busy pushing dance music's emotional range into areas it doesn't usually go. Their dark and twisted instrumental electro touches on feelings of despair, frustration and submerged violence.
A punk attitude has always been evident, but on their new album, "From the Double Gone Chapel," we find Tenniswood abusing the bass and the guitar and even Weatherall singing, his American drawl betraying his long-term love for the kind of garage, rockabilly and punk music he's recently been spinning of an event in a London pub called the Double Gone Chapel. The lyrics further explore the Swordsmen's tendency to create almost gothic atmospheres (and the album includes an excellent cover of Gun Club's classic L.A. punkabilly song "Sex Beat"). The Swordsmen's electro faithful needn't worry, though. Even with ear-searing guitars and the thud of live drums, the electronic madness remains -- croaking, squeaking and squealing like old, rusting machinery. It's still classic Swordsmen: the same raw immediacy and the same sick scenarios.
