SINGLE REVIEW: MURKY CIRCUS – VIGILANTE SHIT
Alright. Cards on the table—I didn’t realise ‘VIGILANTE SHIT’ was a Taylor Swift cover until after I’d already agreed to review it. If I had, I’d have politely declined and gone about my day without having to type that cursed name. Miss Swift, in my opinion, represents everything wrong with the modern music industry: overbranded, overproduced, and vacuum-sealed for mass consumption. I’ve got no time for her songwriting, her carefully curated persona, or the rabid fandom that turns mediocrity into gospel. And while we’re at it, I’ve got a long-standing aversion to covers in general. But against all odds, MURKY CIRCUS have delivered something I not only tolerated—I kind of liked.
Stripped of its megastar baggage, ‘VIGILANTE SHIT’ becomes something altogether different in MURKY CIRCUS’s hands. This version lurches through fuzz-drenched sludge with a stoner-rock backbone thick enough to chew. It’s slow, droning, and unapologetically grubby. The bass gurgles under the surface like it’s been unearthed from a swamp, and the guitars clang with a kind of off-centre garage rock charm—unsophisticated, sure, but completely self-aware. The whole thing sounds like it was recorded on a cracked four-track after three cans of lukewarm lager. That’s a compliment.
Vocally, it’s a raw, throaty crawl. There’s a bluey grit to the delivery that fits the murk perfectly—not overdone, just worn-in and rough around the edges. The drums rumble underneath like they’re not entirely convinced they’re meant to be there, but that wonkiness actually adds to the appeal. The track doesn’t quite know what it wants to be—grunge? sludge? a glorified piss-take?—and that lack of certainty is exactly what gives it personality. It’s crooked, unsteady, maybe even slightly ridiculous… and all the better for it.
Had this been an original, I’d probably be raving. As it stands, MURKY CIRCUS have taken something I’d usually avoid like the plague and turned it into a satisfyingly noisy curveball. I still won’t touch the Swift version with a bargepole, but this one? It’s the kind of snarling, sludge-soaked oddity that might just stay on rotation—grudgingly, but genuinely.
