If their debut EP was somewhat makeshift - glued together aural scraps, noise maps torn up and fitted together a little askew - then this is accomplished. But let's get our definitions straight. Those makeshift pieces packed one hell of a wallop, and this accomplishment just sees them punching harder, faster, harder, faster.
Halfpast Human waves an evil goodbye to the DNA/Mars comparisons without giving up the grinning ghost of no wave. This is their sound now and it is a mighty, mighty howl. As if staring at the moon was a corrosive process, songs like 'The Racket' tear into ears and eyes and spines.

Stewart Gardiner

"What there is is detuned guitar and drums, screeching sax lines that sound like Captain Beefheart just farted them out..."

Park Attack claim themselves the new noise… and they’re not wrong. Everything is thrown together with no regard for continuity or sounding ‘nice’ or musically competent. It sounds a mess because it is one, though a glorious mess at that.

Take track 2, ‘Slow Clap’, for example. It’s furious and there’s not a handclap in sight. What there is is detuned guitar and drums, screeching sax lines that sound like Captain Beefheart just farted them out and when the chorus kicks in there’s sounds resembling submarine noises (well, kinda’ slow mechanical high pitched bleeps).

It takes a band who just don’t give a shit to stir things up occasionally. There’s no consideration for anything and this is one of the most panicky, hotch-botch albums going.

So of course that makes it one of this year's best.

Jonathan Falcone

Like being attacked in a park, I think you'd need to be there to experience the full effect. Committed to CD, or grainy CCTV still shots in The Daily Mail, it loses a certain je ne sais quoi.

Touque

New Noise, alt rock band Park Attack riotously deliver their debut release on an unsuspecting general public.

On the press release for Half-Past Human, the first full length album from rocksters Park Attack, their music is described as 'a wild mix of stomp rock, slop punk and no wave intensity'. Just what the fuck does any of that mean? No wave intensity? Slop punk? Have I gone to sleep and woken up inside an MTV/NME/Guardian wet dream? Its not like the old days, now is it. The days when musical genre descriptions we're rationed so they could be used cleverly against Hitler as part of the war effort. Anyway, that said, I am always eager for musicians to push the boundaries wherever possible so maybe we shouldn't judge Park Attack too harshly. These eleven tracks build on the Last Drop at Hideout EP release from last year and will usher in a frantic period of touring for the band. Indeed, it is clear from listening to this album that Park Attack would be an exciting band to watch live but it is unclear that this has really transferred particularly well into an album listen.

Their sound is intended to be raw and rugged, but at points this can drift toward the shambolic. On Slow Clap, the frantic electronic noises and stripped down drum beat work reasonably well until the band crank up the tempo and then it feels a bit like listening to a crap band jamming. The music is interesting though, with the clever use of synthesised bleeps and whirs over driving guitar and bass lines. Indeed, on reflection, the album seems in actual fact to grow in maturity as the track-list unfolds. However, what really will sway this album to either the good or the bad, is Rob Churm's vocals. Ranging from a ranty mutter to a wailing scream, his vocal for me often feels a bit like the band have grabbed some tramp off the street and asked him to sing over their music.

In a live environment, these slight rough edges can work to their advantage but I do feel that in an album, these make the music feel a little amateurish. Although, tracks such as the slower blues leading to a building crescendo of sound in Blood at Both Ends, the epic atmosphere and well placed electronic siren of The Gilder and mercifully instrumental The Forgetor with its punchy bass and darker mood do show the potential of Park Attack. They have forged their own sound which will appeal to many with its intensity but it is important that this is matched by a musical maturity which at present, this album lacks. Nevertheless, if you like your rock stomping, your punk sloppy and your intensity to have no wave, then this could be the album for you!

By Andrew Laughlin
This release was published on 20 Feb 2006.

"Park Attack's current setlist boasts a song called 'If Music Is The Food Of Love Then I Think I Just Threw Up', which news alone should provide enough reason for you to carve their name into your school desk with a Stanley knife. Nifty song titles aside, however, this Glaswegian trio specialise in the kind of pitch-black, no-wave rattling popular for about a fortnight in New York in about 1983. Not exactly a recipe for chart-busting success, then, but what the hell? This is ferocious."

Author:PL, NME

"From the noisily detuned guitar and hysterically bleted vocals of "Delta Smelter", it's clear that subtlety will not be a feature of this Glasgow trio's debut EP. "Coma Baby Lives" contains a kind of gasping, falsetto vocal which suggests an inept attempt at a soul ballad before the momentum picks up again for the pummelling, shambolic "I'm Gonna Storm The Citadel Of Your Womanhood!". It's always a warning sign when a group's song titles are entertaining, suggesting the songs themselves may be less so. But Park Attack's energetic art rock mess just about manages to hang together for the duration, though God help them if they ever attempt a whole album. It's reassuring that inspired amateurism still has its part to play, and that beneath a high energy, low competence shell, Park Attack's dissonant pop songs provide a gleefully moronic riposte to state of the art, alternative pop professionalism."

The Wire

A trio, Park Attack consists of the insidious vocal scrawl and groaning guitar drone of Rob Churm, the synthesised yelp of Tom Straughan, and the instinctively fluid yet biting drums of Lorna Gilfedder.

Having initially bonded over their love of Mogwai and Spacemen 3 records, Park Attack's DIY vision became a reality through Glasgow's underground network of bands, venues and clubs; a network of which Optimo's Sunday night bash has become the adopted nerve centre in recent years. It's there that residents Twitch and Wilkes have expanded on their "anything goes" DJ sets and put on a myriad of local bands that share aesthetic goals. Park Attack is one such band, with alumni including Sons And Daughters and that afore-mentioned foursome, Franz Ferdinand (whose now legendary Chateau events they have also played).

Optimo's O.S.C.A.R.R. imprint is set to release the band's "Last Drop At Hideout" - an EP of the most danceable, inventively atonal rock this side of 1978. What? More "no wave", you say. Well, not according to the band, who prefer (perhaps unsurprisingly) to separate themselves from the past.

"We're not from New York", explains Lorna, tongue firmly in cheek, "so the need for a new term was necessary - and we're calling that term "what wave". To be part of a movement is inescapable. Our backgrounds lie in Glasgow, a city where hoards of people share musical tastes, purely because they've grown up together, swapping vinyl, talking about records, and listening to each others' live music.

Stuart Gardiner, Fact: 06

Tribal drumming, electronic pulsing and chug-a-chug guitar collide in the space around us with a vocal that makes you think Ian Svenonius ain't so urgent. This distorting fuzz cavalcade makes me want to press my brain against the wall just to f*cking feel it. If Black Dice were a hardcore band - oh yes! That would be nice. My head bounces minutes after they finish because I didn't even notice it was bouncing to begin with. You know when you see a band so unexpectedly remarkable that you think, "Yeah, I need to do this shit"? Mm-hmm, taste it."

Plan B

"Park Attack who record for our very own OSCARR label (which incidentally should see a little more activity in 2005 than in previous years). Park Attack aren't to everyone's taste but then neither is most of our favourite music and we love them with a passion (which to us is all that matters)."

Optimo

"Angular and jagged... guitar sludge"

Artrocker

"Their biog doesn’t tell you too much about Park Attack other than they’re Glaswegian, but I have to award them song title of the decade for “I’m Gonna Storm The Citadel Of Your Womanhood!” I’ll have to try that line on the missus at some point!

When the first of the six track on this release emerges from the stereo speakers, things begin to get clearer. Glasgow, more than probably anywhere else in the UK, has a track record of producing extremely experimental bands, and Park Attack are as far away from the norm as any of their contemporaries. In fact, this is music for sitting in a darkened room wearing a strait jacket and going slowly, torturously insane to. That’s a compliment, by the way!

My overall impression is of the Melvin’s little brothers creeping into their rehearsal room when Buzz and co are absent and trying their best to blow all the amps by making their instruments make noises they shouldn’t. Dark, devious and quite deranged, I reckon you (as the average Subba Cultcha reader, whatever that means!) have an 80% chance of hating this. However, the other 20% of you won’t be able to bear taking it off your stereo for a year."

Eddie Thomas, Subba Cultcha

Park Attack... launch their debut EP, Last Drop At Hideout (OSCARR, Tiger Sushi). Sounding on record like they’ve been supping deep from the same chalice of desperation as renegade American experimentalists The Liars, the Glasgow-based trio... are an explosive combination when live on stage."

Metro

So I almost went home after Park Attack. I didn’t want anything to sully the moment. Sons & Daughters are some sort of country band, right? They could only be a let-down after the dark euphoria I’d just experienced. But, ho-hum, guest-lists and obligations prevailed, so I stuck around."

Sarah Glass, Joyzine

Single Of The Week

Park Attack - 'Last Drop At Hide Out' (Oscarr)
"...with the uncomfortable ‘Coma Baby Lives’ Churm’s possessed wails
disintegrate into a creamy, lulling anti-melody as you’re left alone to
check and re-check your pulse. Something of a mindfuck..."

2. Athlete - Wires (Parlophone)
3. The Autumns - Every Sunday Sky (Bella Union)
4. The Mooney Suzuki - Alive And Amplified (Columbia)
... and many more

Noyz

"Crazy experimantal noise from Glasgow based Park Attack. Similar to the Yeah Yeah Yeah in terms on energy, raw guitar and squeeky vocals but it ends there. Unique."

Funky Mofo

It's as good a pointless label as any to stick on Glasgow's Park Attack. But, dirty, primeval rock would be just as good.

A mesh of guitar, drums and synth with those hot-poker induced vocals that are so in vogue right now, 'Last Drop at Hide Out' sounds like a right Royal mess, and that's a good thing.

Tracks kept short, full of smarts and clever moves. From the primitive rhythms of 'Coma Baby Lives' to the fantastically titled 'I'm Gonna Storm The Citadel of Your Womanhood', it certainly manages to look the part.

Not what you'd call fresh, but it's a decent enough shot across the bows. The potential's there for all to see."

Fake DIY

"Park Attack are a Glasgow trio who clearly enjoy making a post-rock racket. They happily fuzz and pop away creating sonic spaces of electronic and guitar sludge. It's angular and jagged and meshes together in a spectacularly dense, impenetrable way. And that's the main problem with Park Attack; they're quite difficult to groove with, and inspire, to put it politely, more thoughtful consumption. There's nothing wrong with what they do; they do it magnificently, but about three quarters of the way through the set you wish they would do something else magnificently instead."

CD Times

"Just when you thought you had Paris's hippest label, Tigersushi, all figured out, they throw yet another curve ball at you. Unlike their labelmates, Park Attack doesn't make disco, punky house or reverse-engineered EBM. The Glaswegian trio, who comes to Tigersushi via the label's Scottish partner, Oscarr, pounds away on trash-can drums and Confusion Is Sex-era drones. Suddenly, it's 1982 again - and in basements across the world, kids are using punk rock to make virtues out of their limitations. The singer's shrieks make The Slits sound like lounge singers, but cool organ tones offer a cold compress to keep the pain away."

Philip Sherburne, XLR8R

"This is the 3 member band that has debuted out of the rumoured Optimo's label. Their No New York inspired broken performance is added with Lona's moaning and panting singing which is all over the place on track 1. On track 2, it sounds like the Velvets and track 3 with its mix match of four-to-the-floor drumming with a psyche(delic) style keyboards, etc. There is in all 6 tracks that have you on your toes."

Naohiro Kato, Remix

"This trio resulting from Glasgow makes in the radical rock'n'roll, without concession. Sometimes pointing out Kaito for this hysterical female song, Park Attack lorgne also very close to Liars for this passion of Larsen and the pop experimentation. Nevertheless, this trio (two boys, a girl) can insufflate a good amount of fun in their music, history not not to too much lead the speech. Low bordélique and badly granted on "What Wave" sound the gong time the one minute twenty of punk race éperdue, well in the tradition of Slits. Sonic Youth and Pere Ubu seem also a dominating influence on the short pop interlude "Smelter Delta" and the dirty and chaotic guitars of "Coma Baby Lives". Synthés the very post-punk ones of "I' m gonna Storm the citadel?" counterbalance constantly light moods by founding an ambiguous climate the diverting time of these six titles, which will not leave anybody indifferent."

Pinkushion

Park Attack: Fri 24 October 2004 @ Electrowerkz

Electro garage?
"A new take on lo fi (thank God) that you could loosely describe as feedback-centred nerd rock. These guys claim they are about to "Storm the citadel of a woman".
We are not talking singing here, but a staccato yowling - the sound of whelps. But this is layered over a stratospheric guitar caterwauling and a synth-organ grinding that combine as Dirty Surf; B52s washed to shore in the land of the Pixies and stoned to death by a tribe of manic Jesus and the Mary Chains. No compromise with commercial niceties here then. Set up is male vocal/ guitar, male synth, female drums.
Park Attack deliver daft and dangerous grinds, wails and squeals. This is way off the planet of sound; just like nothing on Earth. Refreshing."

Author: OT, Opposition T

"Artrock from Glasgow, on Tigersushi and here with De:Bug. Why Not. Helium vocals and scratchy guitar as if it were the mid-80s or even the highpoint of the punk era, and you had just discovered Sonic Youth, but with a slightly rawer feel. Whimsical music for all who can handle a short trip in the time machine and who still think the guitar is a place to experiment."

De:Bug

"I remember seeing an amazing band called Botanophobia supporting Gorkie's and what I saw that day was three of the Droogiest hippy instrumentalists that I ever and will ever see. Alas! I judged them to be chancer's and no good experimental no-bodies - I was so wrong to the point of pain. The sound that came from three visually unappealing Cardiff men that night sounded better than most things from the last five years. I remember broken vocals and a mist of LSD shrouded instruments sans-structure, Guitars manipulated by junior hacksaws and vocals with no reminiscent teen bullshit. These guys just played what the fuck they wanted and it sounded purer than angel pussy would taste. Botanophobia gave birth to three children - Rob, Lorna and Tom. These Glaswegian, Geordie and Leighton Buzzard incarnations were handed the gift of free-ranging sound based music and took it with them to create something better - Park Attack. 'Last Drop at Hide Out' is better than Punk. It has more direction in mindlessness and confused anger and a total loss of giving a damn about styles, forms, fashions and everything bad that stands in haircut-London. It may not be your cup of tea but many of you who appreciate difference, try it and spread the word as far as you can. This record matters. "

Adam Gill, DogmaNet

"Experimental musicians expect their offerings to change expectations of music itself, and become upset when they're not praised for producing ghastly, disjointed bird squawk. The results of this experiment are apparently 'at the pop end' of the genre. I conclude that deft little tweaks to known music forms usually help namds succeed in the aforementioned aim of touching a nerve. As opposed to bloody jabbing at it. Like this."

Author: MS, Flux

"Op zoek naar een toegankelijk experiment? Liefst nog een beetje trendy ook? Met Park Attack vinden we dolle electronica vermengd met primitieve bluesrock, iets wat de band zelf omschrijft als ‘what wave’. De zes nummers van ‘Last Drop At Hide-Out’ hebben wat van The Rapture en Trans Am met stemmen, maar gaan veel meer in het rood. Her en der overstuurt de boel danig en hoor je donkere, bedwelmende soundscapes, aangevuld met drie-snarige, chaotische gitaren. Zeker niet slecht, maar je moet gewoon worden aan de hoge zang van Rob Churm. Indien aan dat laatste nog wat gewerkt wordt, dan komt het zeker goed met Park Attack. Net als het onvolprezen New Black is dit een band om in de gaten te houden."

Johan, dreun.be

"Park Attack with is crossed scene artrock, noisy and hardcore. This power trio has the formula of eternal youth rock'n'roll (battery, keyboard, guitar). Poni Hoax alone represent the French revival of kinds as well-worn as the post rock'n'roll, No wave, the free jazz and the electro one."

Babes In Boyland

"A forthcoming release on Optimo’s O.S.C.A.A.R label means that Park Attack will get at least a paragraph in the nation’s style mags, but they’re far removed from all that jazz. A Glasgow–based 3 piece who use simple repetitive riffs andshifting rhythms with an explosive garage potency it’s a fast-paced, high-pitched show from beginning to end. With song titles like ‘Sister Ray in 3 minutes flat’ ,‘Kazoo Girlz’ and ‘Euro Buffet’ they can’t go wrong."

One in Four

"Variously described as "darkly euphoric" and "mind fuck music" for "sitting in a darkened room going slowly, torturously insane" Park Attack's debut EP 'Last Drop at Hide Out' is an extraordinary journey along the edges of superbly accomplished rock-electronica.
Brilliantly dark, the sobbing, sighing vocals and hook laden synths are driven by stompingly rhythmic accompaniments. About as far away from haircut-heavy hero-rock as you can go, this blistering debut is about as good as it gets."

Author: ST, Noise

"Who plays a fucking three-string guitar?
For fuck's sake! If you can't afford a proper guitar, don't play. Trying to come over all arty, Park Attack manages to not only sound like a sixth-form band, they also play with no discernable talent (so it's probably a good thing they've only got three strings to dick around with). Usually I look for something good in an album - the best thing I can say about this is that I'm sure PA don't care what I write about them - the worst thing I can say is that this is pile of shit designed to fuck you off and destroy your idea of a vibrant UK music scene.

Rob Mair, Big Cheese

While I'm the first to admit a little dissonance makes the heart grow fonder, this band seem to have a bit of a tension problem. Where's the release? Where's the resolution, people? I feel like pulling my goddamn nose hair out.

Juice

"Chaos theory as music, robots fuck dinosaurs - three string guitars, probably a computer and widdy-do on drums."

The Chateau

"Kicking No Wave into the realms of fantasy. Park Attack live perform as punk bandits to the heartbreak of old soul. Unequivocally original and fresh, they lace the new with nostalgia and beat sense into feeling."

N-zine

"Glasgow Art-scene spazz squeakers like cocked Arab on Radar.."

Obscene Baby Auction

"The most fresh and inventive music being made at this time."

Collective

"Their pyramid formation is tested. It shows that a dynamic opposition of influence can be more important than stuff."

Bridawg

"There's Blood at Both Ends with this fish to fry."

The Medieval Knave Weekly

"Operating without a frame of reference, it is impossible to say if these chancers are any good at all."

Alan Wellburn, Sunsol

"All the old ideas of what's good in rock and roll with a fresh new box."

The New Box

"The empire never ended."

Stirling Associates

"Medieval knave aka posh tramp, fancy-shoes/ fancy-hairdo/ fancy-pants, and the ice-maiden... it's a good job they take their music more seriously than their appearances."

What's New

"Park Attack set the local as paradigm."

Stereo, Glasgow

"This trio are like a stick of dynamite up the ass of complacent bands and listeners."

Online Music Monthly

"If you thought life was good then see the 'Attack in motion."

Allan Stewart, Idlewild

"The Buddha has left the Park."

Louisa McKinlay, The Loaning

"Clever stupidity or stupid cleverness. I don't care. The Park are hot."

Textile Records, Paris

"They seem to possess at least several modes, but don't know how to use them."

Anonymous

"Park Attack set out to deconstruct their ideals before they've even formulated a strategy for existence."

John Sedge, The Globe

"Their version of 'Tears on My Pillow' is simply beautiful."

Sandra Gilfedder

"By god, we needed something like this to come along. They're like a messiah."

Editor in Chief, Alternative Sounds

"Have these people escaped from the lunatic asylum? Or the circus? Are they visitors from another planet? Their onstage wizardry is magnificent to watch, and has to be seen to be believed."

Malcolm McGeown