Fuzz Lightyear: Fuzz II

By Jon Milton

Back in the 80s Leeds used to be known as Gotham City, due to the proliferation of wonderfully dark and doomy goth bands like Sisters of Mercy, The Mission, Skeletal Family, March Violets and Ghost Dance. These days the city is still a hot bed of talent, but with far greater musical diversity. There’s quality post punk from the likes of Treeboy and Arc and Yard Act, Psych Rock from Magick Mountain, Quirky indie from Mush and a whole host of other genres which those good people at local artist development organisation Come Play With Me showcase on their Come Stay With Me compilation. And then there’s noise. 

Photo by Sam Joyce

A couple of months ago Dense released their blistering EP 'Abjection' and just before that Pop Vulture released an EP recorded live at Leeds’s Mabgate Bleach venue which we talked about last week in our round up. Now we have the debut EP from Fuzz Lightyear, Fuzz II.

Fuzz Lightyear consists of Ben Parry on vocals and guitar, Varun Govil on bass and Josh Taylor on drums, and their press pack suggests that if you’re a fan of Metz, Heavy Lungs, DITZ, Show Me The Body and The Wytches you’ll be in good company here. I’d throw grunge and Dinosaur Jr from their early days into the mix too. 

The band first came to our attention in March when they released Animal, which also features on this EP featuring vocals sounding not too dissimilar to those of Kurt Cobain and music that could have passed for Nirvana in their pomp. The rest of the EP however explores different paths. ‘Pulling Teeth’ is a full throttle aural assault where Metz meets Motorhead and has it off, and ‘L.F.W.D.’ and ‘The Lovers’ take the pace down a bit but maintain all the anger and intensity, one moment reflective the next raging. It’s all glorious noise though. 

Next week we’ll be talking about yet another noisy new band from the city call Femur who have a single on the way, but for now Fuzz II is going on repeat, interspersed with a few revisits of Dense’s Abjection. Happy Days.          

Fuzz II is out now: 

​https://whoarefuzzlightyear.bandcamp.com/album/fuzz-ii