The Scientists
Sedition
ATP/Remote Control



Kim Salmon says that the return of the Scientists is well and truly a reformation. They're not trying to pick up where they left off 22 years ago; instead, their reunion is simply about recreating a particularly point in time - specifically, 1985.

Recorded in May last year at the Shepherd's Bush Empire in the UK, 'Sedition' features most of the lineup from 1985, and the same 'lets fuck things up' attitude. Clearly, age has not wearied chief Scientist Salmon, as he howls and mangles his guitar through a selection of the band's prime cuts. Bookended, appropriately, by the classics Swampland and We Had Love, 'Sedition' might be the teaser that tempts a new generation to discover this seminal garage band's back catalogue.

God knows the Scientists, and Kim Salmon in particular, deserve it. As luminaries such as Rollins, Thurston Moore, Jon Spencer, The Dirty Three's Warren Ellis, and The Drones' Gareth Liddiard explain in the generous liner notes, this band were an inspiration in the early '80s to anyone looking for the dark, seedy underbelly of rock'n'roll.

Yet the most compelling thing about this recording is the apparent timelessness of the songs. The songs may be more than 20 years old, and the band no longer spring chickens, but in the new millennium, with the Scientists' dirty, obnoxious, and apocalyptic swamp sound now appropriated by countless bright young things, it's fitting that on stage in 2006, you wouldn't even know.

Peter Strelan