SPECIAL INTEREST

Invasion (Rough Trade)

The last five to 10 years have been really interesting as regards the evolution of what might be deemed ‘queer’ music, culturally speaking. Notably, it’s become distinctly more abrasive and leftfield – or that sort of music has been queered if you want to look at it that way. Special Interest, an extraordinary quartet of punk rockers from New Orleans, are a relevant node here, even while they stand at a degree of reserve from it, much as they do with DIY punk.

Endure, their third studio album, is their first for a ‘large’ indie label following widespread props for 2020’s The Passion Of. The extent to which it’s a play for mainstream appeal can be summed up by a second-half run of three songs powered by thunderous gabber techno beats. This is a sweaty underground dancefloor album and then some, with no smoochy sections even while powerhouse vocalist Alli Logout intermittently slips into an r’n’b-ish cadence.

There’s also an interpolation of A Number Of Names’ early 80s proto-techno single Sharivari on Foul, and an eight-minute closing number in LA Blues which is unrelated to the Stooges song of that name and sounds like Outkast remixed for a goth disco. No-one’s doing it better than Special Interest!

words NOEL GARDNER