Released on Limited Edition Poppy Red with Black Smoke Vinyl (200 copies) on 2nd May 2025 via Sugar Shack Arkive
“madnomad is the look on your parent’s faces when you accidentally catch them fucking.“ – Venue
“Here is a band that defies musical trends, brings back the meaning of art and eccentric behaviour and have the songs to boot.” – Rock Sound
“In madnomad’s world, it seems, everybody’s free to feel bad.” – Choke zine
Pig masks, burning keyboards, full frontal nudity – madnomad’s self-styled ‘entertainment product’ was briefly the greatest show on earth. And while that spectacle is seared into the retinas of all who saw it, what mattered was the music: a molotov cocktail that drew on The Chemical Brothers, Butthole Surfers, Bill Hicks, Baz Luhrmann and The Aphex Twin.
madnomad was the alter ego of Doncaster’s Rob Parry, who “came to Bristol for the weekend and never left.” Accompanied variously by a tap dancer and a puppet theatre duo, early live performances made an immediate impact. Musicians from some of the city’s best bands were pulled into the project, resulting in one of the great lost albums of its time. Furious, tender, hilarious – tamper-evident was a revelation in the era of dodgy dossiers and ‘new rock revolution’. It still sounds radical today.
The misanthropic Ad Nauseam and incendiary Let’s Kill The Pig feature stellar performances from Parry himself. Elsewhere there are memorable turns from Chikinki’s Rupert Browne (It Is This, tamper-evident) and Annette Berlin (Big Joan / Shoun Shoun), whose harrowing performance on The Drunkard’s Song is a must-hear.
35 Summers’ meditation on the passage of time is framed by achingly lovely guitars, while Period’s jaunty tune belies the hopelessness of its narrator’s life. madnomad even venture into drill ‘n’ bass on the frantic Thanx. Abrupt changes of pace and mood are key to the album’s disconcerting brilliance.
Sugar Shack Records released tamper-evident on CD in 2003 and there were plans for a vinyl release to follow but it wasn’t to be. After a notorious performance at Beautiful Days festival Rob decided to take a break and it soon became clear the break would be permanent. madnomad’s reign of terror was over, or so it seemed.
But 22 years later, tamper-evident is back and it’s lost none of its disorientating power. Remastered for vinyl and presented on poppy red with black smoke wax, this is the definitive madnomad Entertainment Product. Grab your tin opener and tuck in.