Choke Fanzine
Title: Demo Review
Date: 22nd Feb 2002
Author: Willie the Disc
Web site: www.choke.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk

Forget everything you know about South Wales and rock music. Forget proto-menopausal dadrockers like Stereophonics and vodka-fuelled amateurs like Catatonia. In fact, forget the nineties completely. Here's a band from the other side of the Severn Bridge that actually makes you feel something...and it's something ugly and very entertaining.

Chang are a 4 piece from Newport/Cardiff in love with US bands like Big Black, Dead Kennedys and NoMeansNo. Not the most wholesome list of influences perhaps, but it certainly marks you out an identity. They're pretty unforgettable live - Front man Dave usually ends up on the floor whining like an abused puppy by the end of the show and has even been known to attempt to knock himself out onstage when the mood takes him. Dave's vocal style is pure cartoon violence, bringing to mind everyone from The Damned to Birthday Party-era Nick Cave.

On this untitled set of 7 new demo tracks, Chang take the hardcore sound inherited from the more purist of their influences and make it their own. Despite their intensity and aggression, some of the tunes have a real swing to them too. On one song, they even employ what sounds to me like a full-on breakbeat, though that might be my jungle-addled mind playing tricks on me. The most striking thing about Chang is probably the demented slide playing of guitarist Neal Griffiths, who sounds like Jeremy Spencer would if you sneakily replaced his beloved acid with concentrated PCP. Perhaps it's a nod to Beefheart's jerky desert-blues, but in this context it sounds fresh and vital.

On the strength of this CD, Chang have a nightmare punk sound to suit everyone. Actually, that's a lie. They're clearly not going to be to everyone's taste. For example, when I saw them play to a bunch of Rugby loving savages in Cardiff they nearly got glassed. Still, the band took it in their stride, which you probably have to if you make music this uncompromising. For every bottle that flies across the stage, Chang also win a handful of true believers.

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