<< Back To Press Hot Press : Whipping Boy EP August 1990 Whipping Boy take you from the psychocandy store on the corner to the bodybag on Hamburger Hill, with a ludicrously addictive sonic shit-storm, a squall of screaming seagulls cunningly disguised as guitars, bass and drums with a vocal riding somewhere underneath the surface noise and sounding for all the world like it was phoned in from the pub at closing time. When you've got titles like "Switchblade Smile", "Valentine 68" and "Sugar I Swear" on your hands, theres not much needfor actual lyrics to go along with them so Fearghal McKee's lack of clarity is mostly irrelevant but whats certainly relevant is that Whipping Boy have buckets of attitude (bad attitude that is, which is even better), a definite grasp of what they are doing and, lurking beneath the mangled maelstrom and mayhem, some quite nifty pop melodies. George Byrne