Liverpool creative collective, Psycho Comedy, are back with a visceral new single and video, I’m Numb, which is taken from their acclaimed debut album Performance Space Number One. This latest offering is another gloriously unhinged and unrelenting example of their vintage New York-scene refracted garage-punk. While the song has been in the Psycho Comedy repertoire for some time now, this latest version of I’m Numb was recorded and produced in Summer 2019 by accomplished producer Rob Whiteley at Whitewood Studios in Liverpool.
There are shades of the Iggy classic Lust For Life, with mass of guillotine guitars, wild-eyed lyricism and thrashing percussion. Ejected with such frenzied execution, like most tracks on the album, it barely lasts 3 minutes, but is fully aware of how to savour in every second. A paean to the unsettled mindsets still ticking in the small hours, I’m Numb takes us into the warped thoughts of one such protagonist as they find the night-before blurring unstoppably into the morning-after.
As frontman Shaun Powell elaborates, “A late night early / morning memoir. Laced with a sinister tone and black comedy, I’m Numb is an unapologetic confession of one’s debauched mindset…. With the tempo and rhythm reflecting the heartbeat of the character. Noise guitar hints towards The Shangri La’s/ Phil Spector, like glistens of light in the early morning. A raucous number.”
Tense, troubled and ultimately thrilling listening, I’m Numb sits alongside 13 other tracks on the band’s debut LP Performance Space Number One’ each of which aim to capture the ephemeral mindset of Psycho Comedy’s own vocalist and lyricist. Dubbed a “psychological concept album”, the record’s songs individually cast different lights on various elements of Powell’s conflicting psyche; from battling the harsh realism of modern life with the surrealist temptation of debauchery, darkness and nostalgia.
Owing to its electrifying unpredictability and restless intensity, Shaun Powell recorded the vocals for I’m Numb on the adrenaline rush of sleep-absent night; as he did with all of the tracks on Performance Space Number One. I’m Numb follows recent singles Pick Me Up and Standin’ (both of which were championed by radio taste-makers Steve Lamacq and Tom Robinson of BBC Radio 6 Music); and comes in the wake of a wave of rave reviews for their debut album.
