Bonded not only by blood but a taste for finding humour in the macabre, Patrick and Tom Malone are brothers whose sibling intuition extends to a penchant for songs as melodic as they are bizarre. Cut-throat guitars, dirty basslines and contorted synthesisers are their tools as the brothers pen hook-filled numbers with strange, poetic lyrics, often influenced by the stark realism in the wordplay of Patrick’s heroes Leonard Cohen and Charles Bukowski. This bold, thought-provoking prose is set to a musical backdrop of exhilarating wall-of-sound pop and primitive punk energy, unleashed by Patrick on guitar/vocals and Tom on bass/vocals respectively, with the aid of Steve Wraight (vocals/percussion) and Dan Robershaw (guitar).
The Reading band have performed their adventurous, singularly intense live shows on the same bill as Fat White Family, The Zombies and The Correspondents, and garnered resounding praise for their blistering debut single, ‘Hanging Tree’, taken from their first long-player, Through Snow and Small Talk, to be released on the band’s own DIY Freak Power label in the autumn of 2017. It’s an album fizzing with ideas and energy, capturing Adam & Elvis in all their irreverent, witty and experimental glory, the sound of a group that have come of age and are proving as hard to pigeonhole as they are to ignore.
Adam & Elvis: Modern Hitz
We’ve all been there. Another Saturday night enduring identikit clubs, watery drinks and cheesy chart music in the vain hope of stumbling across a special someone. It’s a state of affairs that Adam & Elvis sum up with characteristically mischievous prose in ‘Modern Hitz’, inspired, as vocalist Patrick Malone explains, “by times I have crossed my fingers queueing for a club, hoping the music isn’t depressing and the company isn’t awful”. At the heart of the song’s intoxicating blend of carnivalesque power pop, new-wave funk, silvery synth and quivering guitar stands a hooky chorus that candidly summarises Patrick’s nightlife desires: “Please can I have a kiss/What the hell do you think I’m dancing for?”
Adam & Elvis: Modern Hitz Lyrics:
