FutureAges: 002 E.P.

Five tracks of punky new-wave prog from the ambitious four-piece.

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When punk became fashionable in 1976/77, everyone forgot that there were some bands called ‘punk’ who were actually rather progressive: the likes of Talking Heads and Television, for instance. And this is hugely relevant to FutureAges, because those influences clearly run through this five-track EP.

Led by vocalist Natasha Fox, who sounds like Siouxsie Sioux with dabs of Marianne Faithfull, what this four-piece create is an agitated style that mixes in the more illuminated approach of the new wave era, with inspiration from Roxy Music, Here & Now and Swell Maps.

They’re still finding their range, which means sometimes the band inevitably sound frustrated that they can’t yet find the full expression for their ambition. Despite this, there’s still much to admire. Courage Of A Coward is angrily innovative, while Missing Misery offers up howls of vulnerability, and Belamoure is dysfunctionally affectionate.

Daryl S. Tattoo is a guitarist able to smear atonal creativity across more contemplative passages, thus giving full rein to Fox’s aloof charisma. And there are enough moody-yet-merry moments on display to show that this is a band with epic aspirations.

Malcolm Dome

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021