“I want to step outside my happy world, descend into the depths of stupidity, ugliness, obtuseness, unfaithfulness and fakes,” says urbane Irvine Welsh-alike Dries Van Hegen when asked to join punk band The Feminists, “four handicapped guys from Ostend”. His own handicap? “I can’t play the drums.” Like a noisy, nasty-minded Trainspotting with four Begbies and no Bond banter, Ex Drummer embroils us in a grubbily immersive story of drugs, dead babies, dismembered dicks, rape, rock and ultra-violence; although the extent to which Dries is authoring this sordid tale or participating in it is anyone’s guess. As demented as fellow Belgian shockers Man Bites Dog and The Ordeal, this strange, screeching visit to the land of oddness will leave you energised, unnerved and desperately in need of a good, hard scrub.
