Grove’s affirmative and purposeful EP aches for the club - or essentially any sweaty darkened crowded space. Whilst we wait for the hallowed ‘Summer of Love’, we’ll have to dance in our rooms to this banging EP for now. Many of the tracks reveal Grove’s political activist side as well, with the most explicit being Fuck Your Landlord. In its chorus, “Off with their heads!” gains so many new post-Alice-in-Wonderland meanings, including a revolutionary cry to knock the landlord off his thrown and maybe a cheeky command to 'off-their-heads' party-goers. Whilst my slightly darker interpretation might be that these two things intersect, with drug use generally coming hand in hand with trying to escape a larger problem. In any case, we want to mosh to this track once more and bring on post-lockdown raves.
Personally, I prefer the thinking-man’s rave, and as Grove says they're inspired by Angela Davis, the queer Marxist writer and activist; I want to highlight that Grove is truly hitting the mark making black working class feminist music. Grove’s Queer + Black treats lesbian desire and class politics akin to the blues artists that back in the eighties softened Angela Davis’ qualms with identity politics (OUT Magazine). Queer + Black is a bouncing, sometimes experimental, head-banging and thought-provoking EP that has seen tracks championed by many-a BBC radio 1 host pre-release. But, far beyond isolated identity politics or liking this album for the person’s political position, we hear it for what it is – a debut EP teeming with great dance-inducing anthems that have Bristol’s industrial kinks mixed with smooth Jamaican dancehall to perfect measure. Fill up your cup. Stream now.