Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

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Mojo MARCH 2015 - by David Sheppard

DEVO: MIRACLE WITNESS HOUR

The Akron new wave/sci-fi surrealists, live in '77 pomp.

Recorded in the unlikely environs of Cleveland, Ohio's Eagle Street Saloon, a down-at-heal biker bar (a particularly under-populated one, if the smattering applause is anything to go by), Miracle Witness Hour may be ironically titled but from the evidence of its ten primal, angular and compelling tracks, it's not hard to appreciate why David Bowie would soon pronounce them "the band of the future" and incite a race to produce their debut albu, alongside Iggy Pop and eventual winner Brian Eno. A curious blend of the raucous, the madcap and the otherworldly, signature tracks like Jocko Homo and Mongoloid are infused with punk energy but delivered with a hypnotising alien detachment, while the minimalist synths, waspy guitars and oblique cross-rhythms of Polyvinyl Chloride offer a blueprint for incipient post-punk, rendering plausible Bowie's proclamation of innovatory greatness.