DEAD UNIQUE

Blackest Ever Black are quick to note that Dead Unique is not a reissue. Rather, it's an album recorded in 1995 that just never got released. How it ended up that way¯well, nobody really remembers. (How's that for self-mythologizing?) But let's back up a bit: what the hell is Officer!, you ask? It was the baby of Londoner Mick Hobbs, a quirky rocker who had his start in the RIO scene¯that's Rock in Opposition, a UK movement started in the late '70s to promote "progressive" and non-commercial bands in the wake of both punk and corporate rock¯with stints in groups like the Work and Half Japanese, among others. By no means a solo project, Officer! was a revolving-door band that centered around Hobbs' uniquely zany persona, a little bit psychedelic and very English. They released a few cassettes (one of which, 1984's Ossification, just got its own reissue), but Dead Unique, the project's most recent work, might just be its most fully realized, as well as its most unhinged.

Officer! sound like the madcap psychedelia of Syd Barrett bred with the whimsy of Canterbury psychedelic bands, executed with the frayed mental state of post-punk. Sometimes, they barely sound like a functioning band on Dead Unique, but other moments showcase a tight ensemble tying in blues and progressive rock into their patchwork weave. If that all sounds a little out of place on a label like Blackest Ever Black¯usually home to dark electronics from the likes of Raime and Tropic of Cancer¯that's because it is, but nonetheless there's a menacing undertone to Officer!'s strange nursery rhymes. Paranoia surfaces in tracks like "Go Back", where Hobbs sings "People of the world/ Lie to us/ Like you lie to me," a choked phrase that you imagine coming out from a crooked smile with rotten and missing teeth. It's the kind of crackpot worldview you get from someone who's taken a little too much acid in their lifetime, but coming from Hobbs it feels tongue-in-cheek, delivered with a nod and a wink. (Pitchfork)

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