I wouldn’t describe myself as a David Keenan fanboy and if this comment makes me persona non grata to the Memorial Device nation, well, I’m sorry, but them’s the breaks. Volcanic Tongue, a compilation of David Keenan’s writings about late 20th century underground music, however, is insanely good. An embarrassment of riches over its five-hundred plus pages. Especially for people who sometimes believe music is a matter of life and death, but at other times, believe it is way more important than that. The greatest music writers are those who somehow manage to describe the indescribable, with such command and skill it encourages the reader to go out and buy an LP, CD or cassette, just to see whether the sound matches the words. It rarely does. And yet if the writer is as good as David Keenan it matches at enough levels to transport, to thrill, to flood one’s current reality with musical joy, and what’s better than that? Volcanic Tongue is that portal. Stuffed full of interviews, primers, reviews and plenty of nods to exciting, weird and out-there music it’s absolutely essential especially when sentences are as good as this one, “…Metal Box is Lydon at his most marginalised, his most alienated, and in its almost complete refusal to indulge or placate the listener, in its sheer rage, it makes Throbbing Gristle sound like a bunch of social workers”. Of course, I don’t need to tell you the imprint, do I? It’s that white bunny lot and with Volcanic Tongue they’ve just gone and done it again. Totally recommended.