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LP
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MR 490LP
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Punk pioneer/Eater main-man, Andy Blade's seventh solo album and follow up to 2024's critically acclaimed and heavily rotated Being Alive Is Fun. Featuring Quick Romance's Matilda Scotland, Dinosaur Jr collaborator Tiffany Anders, Generation X guitarist Bob Derwood Andrews, Madness' brass section Smith & Elms, PseudoPomp's Katerina Sharkova, Myura Amara, and more. It is imbued with the usual left-of-center Blade-ism's and themes: star maps, UFO's and a slightly twisted nod to tragic '70s heroine Karen Carpenter. You get what you deserve with Blade, and with Tiny Specks you are rewarded with a rich code to decipher at your leisure. Most of all, however, it is all about the quality of his songwriting. Opening track "Karen Is The Drummer" (featuring Blade's regular singing collaborator -- PseudoPomp's Katerina Sharkova) seems unsettlingly self-explanatory, but all does not seem well in the Carpenter M.O.R world. Occasional Dinosaur Jr vocalist Tiffany Anders gives "I'm Not Myself" a poppy but eerie nuance. PollyPikPocketz's Myura Amara pops up on the short but very sweet "About That." Matilda Scotland, Quick Romance's uber-cool punky-chanteuse adds her Gen Z aura to the summery "I Like It When You're Happy." Former Generation X guitarist Bob 'Derwood' Andrews, with whom Blade has worked with consistently of late, once again features heavily on "Tiny Specks." Like with Katerina Sharkova's voice, Derwood guitar lines interweave with Blade's honeyed vocal as though they made for each other. "This Place" is another key track, capturing the claustrophobic-genocidal mood of the events in Gaza/Palestine.
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