C Turtle – ‘Expensive Thrills’ review: riding the ’90s indie revival wave

6 March, 2024

c turtle band

Poking their heads above the surface with their lively debut ‘Expensive Thrills’, C Turtle emerge from some of London’s least hygienic green rooms with a modern take on classic indie. The four-piece have perfected the recipe for propulsive fuzz rock: a delicious collection of lo-fi songs which rarely lift their feet from the overdrive pedal. And like the venues they hang out in, such as Brixton’s underground tastemaker venue The Windmill, there is nothing remotely sanitised about this record.

Recorded at Abbey Road Studios, C Turtle clearly had all the swanky equipment at their disposal. So why does ‘Expensive Thrills’ sound as though it was recorded in a bedroom littered with empty bottles and overflowing ashtrays? It appears that singers Cole Flynn Quirke and Mimi McVeigh haven’t lost sight of their origins as a grungy, tongue-in-cheek live outfit, instead determined to go against the flow of contemporary recording standards. On lead single ‘Shake It Down’, the pair tell us to “slowdance in a streetfight”. In other words, C Turtle are swimming rapidly against the current.

Album opener ‘Have You Ever Heard A Turtle Sing?’ brilliantly resembles the acrimonious vocal interplay of Pixies’ Kim Deal and Black Francis. Instrumental track ‘Splitter’, meanwhile, feels like it should have been soundtracked on an old skater video game played by scruffy millennials who grew up on Pavement and Silver Jews. Listening to ‘Expensive Thrills’ echoes the same strange nostalgia for a sun-dappled youth spent doing, well… nothing.

With other tracks that deal with more playful, or perhaps inconsequential themes such as spotting animals (‘How Many Birds’, ‘More Insects’) and, er, flying humans (‘Harry Who Knew How To Fly’), C Turtle challenge a scene saturated by overtly political punk bands. Refreshingly, the band embrace the nonsensical side of life and wrap it up in the style of ’90s indie.

‘Expensive Thrills’ opens a window into a small DIY world which mocks an often-sterile contemporary music industry. Here is a band who remind us that subversive music needs to have a bit of dirt beneath its fingernails.