Jemma Freeman and The Cosmic Something: Easy Peeler

Jemma Freeman and The Cosmic Something present ‘Easy Peeler’ from forthcoming album ‘Miffed’ on Trapped Animal.

Genre-fluid rock trio from London channel their inner punk on manic rollercoaster of a new song… and take Ged Babey’s breath away.

Three long years ago I raved about Jemma Freeman and the Cosmic Something and their debut album.

Helen Is A Reptile was the single best track and video of the year 2019. A scaley, explosive glam horrorshow.

The ‘A Matter of Life & Death’ interview with them was, and still is, extraordinary, telling their story with painful honesty. As was the piece on the astounding Black Rain video.

Let’s get this this straight; the Cosmic Something are not ‘a punk band’. They are Jemma (Drag King alter-ego Jeff onstage) a highly original songwriter and skilled guitarist and collector of effects-pedals with, currently Samuel Nicholson (bass) and Jason Ribeiro (drums). They play a progressive glam, psych, pop, soul music but this, Easy Peeler (and much of the forthcoming album) is inadvertently and intuitively Punk Rock.

It rages and has a downhill without brakes momentum. Try and sing this, THAT fast!

Made in England,
Made up trash,
Made up nonsense,
Made up class
Made up structure,
Made up farce
Incest culture
Crashing cars,
Deleting comments,
Filled with shame,
Retell my story,
My dead-name,
Vomit coleslaw,
Pilfering scum,
It’s my opinion that you’re done!

Sorry (Jemma), but despite a vague kinship to Cool Hand Lukes ‘I can eat 50 eggs’ I’m not that fond of the video.

The song however is fuckin’ amazing! I can hear ‘Don’t Dictate’ and ‘Young Savage’ in there (songs the band have no doubt never heard) and am not at all surprised to read the recording was live-in-the-studio.

Jemma explains that the song was born out of a warm-up jam in a rehearsal,

“it’s a thing of pure unadulterated fury at brexiteers, the patriarchy, anti-vaxers, terfs and royalists, with exasperation directed at late night online social media discourse dressed up as debate that is actually just pessimistic, shallow bigotry.

Easy Peelers are a type of fruit specially bred for the skin to be easily removed. I like the symmetry of the name with the thin-skinned critics of so called snowflake culture. The vitriolic delivery a testament to the unimaginable futility you can feel as just one small person in an ocean of vacuous impossibility.

And despite the press release describing the sound as: “Led Zeppelin fronted by Madonna”. It’s not. More Cyndi Lauper going crazy with a band made up of Nirvana and the Dead Kennedys.

A stunning, adrenaline-packed single from an album which will blow you away…

Live Dates

14th October, London – The Victoria Dalston (Get in Her Ears)
5th November, Bristol – The Cube
9th November, London – The Lexington

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Taken from the new album Miffed out 25th November 2022 on Trapped Animal Records.

All words Ged Babey.  Press release content in italics. Photo Credit: Suzi Corker

Source: louderthanwar.com