Album Review: Comfort - 'What's Bad Enough?'
In an industry where playlists are king, and aesthetic rules, Comfort are not unconcerned with fitting in.
As they thread the line between blistering punk, magnetising synth-lines and cathartic lyricism, Comfort have been an enforceed reckoning within Glasgow's queer/punk scene. Rejecting the industry standards regarding how a song is supposed to be written, Comfort are seemingly the opposite of their name itself. Their sheer live power leaves audiences wide-eyed, while their infectious energy draws home a message so raw.
Comfort consists of Sean on drums and Natalie as an electric frontwoman. Now, through their signing with FatCat records, comes the next immersive chapter for the duo, What's Bad Enough?
Recorded with homerunner, Tony Doogan (notably working with the likes of Mogwai and Tennage Fanclub), the sibling duo pitched up at Castle of Doom Studios in Glasgow and welded together the formations of their next collective project. Building up initial ideas through the power of improvisation and feeding off one another, gives this almost flow-like state to their music that you only ever see in the serenities - or sheer carnage - of punk ethics.
As siblings, Natalie and Sean’s deep understanding and unwavering trust of one another allows them to push each other beyond self-imposed thresholds. A song has never sounded so strongly bounded to one another than with stalwart lead, Real Woman. A short-and-snappy affair of off-kilter acoustics and jittery electronics, it's a statement of intent as Natalie's existence as a transwoman becomes centre stage. A queer liberation to the constricts of a society, Natalie muses "I've never had so much interest in what's between my legs / I don't blame them at all / I think I'm fit as well." Billionaire Potential is also another flagship of material in the damaging rise of grind culture. Natalie incites sarcasm as she states, "Poverty is a choice / Opportunity is my vice, I'm on / I never play the victim role / Complaining has zero value, I'll be (Top of Forbes)".
The liberation doesn't let up either. Angular Pride of Britain is a mob mentality of finding freedom in a country devoid of it to begin with, while the swampy wriggling of Normal Till It's Not ramps up synth swells on the unhinged nature of capitalism. The drowsy ambience of Cowardice in Numbers is a welcomed change of pace as Natalie's strong lyrics turn up an octave once more, "you will have a lot of problems / And be seen as a cause / I'm afraid to be too honest / Feel it young, violence as a child," as the pressure to conform as a queer person rises with every passing moment. Same Sh*te, Different Lad is more of fiery passion as the sibling duo intend to deliver their best - an impulsive inflection of a pouring out, Natalie releases, "You have become anatomy / Of a f*ck up," while Sean colludes over a percussive flair.
From the crevice of Glasgow, come a highly-spirited sibling duo intent on bending a misshapen society into a real sense of freedom - and not just tolerance.
A work littered with power-moves of intent, What's Good Enough? is an improvisational work of energy, creativity, passion and anger about a world that doesn't want to understand. Of course, making a world understand when it doesn't want to is no easy feat. But it all starts with Comfort.
Words by Alex Curle
