In the Court Of The Wrestling Lets - Let's wrestle

4 stars "Savant genius from reckless London-based trio...

In a month where 90% of new acts have sounded like Panda Bear, The Arcade Fire and Little Boots, the pleasure wrought by this sui generis collection cannot be overstated. Recorded in a Whitechapel basement by three men barely into their twenties, In the Court Of... sounds both warmly familiar yet dazzlingly fresh. Subserved by bassist Mike Lightning and drummer Darkus Bishop, the damaged brain of vocalist/guitarist Wesley Patrick Gonzalez crafts urban Learesque pop-punk ecstasies about the usual - buying a mattress (Insects), punching Johnny Borrell (I'm in Fighting Mode), falling for your bassist because he has Princess Diana hair (Diana's Hair) - that hook cheekily onto the frayed coat-tails of Barrett, Buzzcocks and Neutral Milk Hotel. Some might find their ramshackle rhythms as insubstantial as a dream, others will be too swaddled in bliss to care." - MOJO

MOJO's Top 10 (July 2009)
Number 1- Let's Wrestle 'My Arms Don't Bend That Way Damn It'
"The deputy ed's favourite/only young band pick of the month, a jerry-built Buzzcocks assemblage against meanness. It makes him happy (and little else does)." -MOJO

4 Stars
Behind a superficially shambolic sound and a stuck-on sneer, the London band Let’s Wrestle hide a focused pop-punk sensibility and the delightful deadpan cynicism of frustrated romantics. Their front man, Wesley Patrick Gonzalez, thrashes twitchy riffs, blabs about dead princesses and charity shops, bleating his ba-ba-ba’s with the wide-mouthed insouciance of a young Pete Shelley. Fortysomethings will blush at echoes of becardiganned post-punk Peel-show postures, long presumed lost. Young people, primed by exposure to the Arctic Monkeys’ cleaner but comparable kitchen-sink stürm and twang, will wonder why they have been wasting their time stealing anyone else’s songs off the internet. -Stewart Lee, The Times On Sunday

rough trade exclusive with bonus cd of let's wrestle covering 5 songs. 'in the court of the wrestling let's' is the debut album from the youthful, shambolic and endearing let's wrestle. it was recorded in a basement in whitechapel underneath the only ukulele shop in europe and released by the ever impressive stolen recordings. the 16 track album (including 3 interludes) has everything you'd want from a let's wrestle release - that certain english charm, hooks that would sit perfectly on a buzzcocks release and that magical yet slightly out of tune vocal that only dan treacy from the tv personalties and nickki sudden from the swell maps have perfected in the last 30 years. singer, guitarist and lyricist wesley crafts urban learesque pop punk ecstasies about - a woman inside your head with no face that you are in love with, getting a job so you can buy girls drinks at clubs, how bass player mike lightning's hair looks like princess diana's from the point of view of a homosexual man who is in love with the dead princess, a really famous crack addict and the elderly people of frinton on sea. 'in the court of the wrestling let's' is a young, exciting, ramshackle and much loved album here at rough trade shop. -Rough Trade

Let's Wrestle have been slouching around north London venues for a while now, Findus crispy-crumbs in their hair and surrealist bile in their bellies. Their debut buzzes withal the frisson of perspiring pre-teens getting their pseudo-sexual jollies playing Tetris under unmade bed linen; a sort of puerile Pavement with bigger laughs. At worst the band does a sort of meta pub-rock with fake ID and sloppy handclaps, but mostly they sound like lo-fi gods inhabiting human form, Wesley Patrick Gonzalez hitting high notes like a high-school spod told to square up to the bullies by his mum. Best of all are ‘I Won't Lie To You's' frothing pop and ‘Diana's Hair', a jaundiced ode to the late Queen Of Hearts that raises insolence to an artform. - 8/10 Alex Denney NME

When Let's Wrestle play live, bassist Mike Lightning hides behind a fringe so expansive you could pull it over you like a nice quilt on a cold night. That's odd, because on the strength of their charmingly feckless debut album - too blokey to be twee - the Stolen Recordings teenage trio have nothing to be bashful about. -Dazed & Confused

‘...an underdog album to cherish and take comfort in.' -8/10 Loud And Quiet

Conflagrating girlfriends, odes to Amy Winehouse and ruminations on the late Princess Diana's hair: all in a day's work for blackly comic London trio Let's Wrestle, who recorded their debut under a ukulele shop in east London. They do a nice line in larksome lo-fi ditties, too, with lyrics that might've spilled from the pen of Daniel Johnson had he been locked in his bedroom with nothing to read but old copies of Heat magazine for twelve months -4 Stars The Stool Pigeon

So, world, enjoy. There's so much good to Let's Wrestle, such a great deal of dumb-smile glee conveyed with this album, that it's a perfect pick-me-up for any occasion. It's Buzzcocks-goes-Daniel Johnston, with a little Guided By Voices on the side, erudite and desperate, and everything mentioned above and yet a lot, lot more. And it's a pleasure to share it, and them, with you.-9/10 Clash Magazine

Many of the tracks are lined with the wit we've come to expect from these chaps: ‘Song For Old People' and ‘My Arms Don't Bend That Way, Damn It!' are two examples of the dry humor, which helps to set this London 3-piece apart from many of their contemporaries. Couple this with stand-out tracks such as ‘I'm In Love With My Destruction' and ‘Tanks' and you have a mighty fine effort, made all the more enjoyable for its slight whiff of Dinosaur Jr. after a few bottles of sambuca.- Artrocker

"... Let's Wrestle. Musically, there is an anarchic punk spirit and reckless youthful thrust in their mixture of guitar, pliant bass and rock hard drumming that sometimes sounds like they are going around a corner with two wheels off the ground and every door open. Lyrically, they are Libertines with no time for poetry with subject matter ranging from record collecting, comics, mundane life, unrequited love, an insane obsession with Lady Diana's hair and even old age. In Dreams sounds like a mixture of Blur and Roy Orbison whilst I'm In Love With Destruction, I'm In Fighting Mode, I Won't Lie To You, Tanks and My Schedule are fantastic  Finally, with its 60's Beach Boys meet Ramones harmonies We Are The Men you'll Grow To Love is an summer anthem waiting to seduce every lover of punk rock - whatever their age. -Record Collector (4 Stars)

....'In The Court Of The Wrestling Let's' was never going to be a straight-forward record - and Let's Wrestle are certainly not a straight-forward band. It's messy, changeable and a bit odd - but that's what makes it so bloody good.-CMU

The Husker Du-lionising and strategic swearing of earlier releases might be absent, but Let's Wrestle's copious charms are otherwise very much in force on their full-length debut. They're a comedic, careering proposition, all speaker-flinging guitars, furiously fluid bass (most notably on 'We Are The Men You'll Grow To Love Soon' and courtesy of the magnificently monikered Mike Lightning) and distracted-yet-impassioned hollering about Gedge-esque insecurity ('My Arms Don't Bend That Way, Damn It!'), bedsit schlock ('Insects') and the outright weirdness of the fetishising fandom of a certain deceased princess (the outstanding 'Diana's Hair'). It's an utter shambles, inevitably, but submission's virtually mandatory. -8/10 Rocksound

Once you've tussled with the album's unwieldy title, it's easy to warm to exuberant young trio Let's Wrestle. Their first LP is a blast of brashly thrashed-out, hoarsely hollered guitar numbers liberally spiked with goofy humour (track titles include the amiable opening number My Arms Don't Bend That Way, Damn It! and a flighty interlude called My Eyes Are Bleeding), and woozy romance including an offbeat tribute to Princess Diana. Let's Wrestle's swaggeringly catchy melodies evoke the blustering fun f their live shows. They're resolutely lo-fi - on My Schedule, vocalist Wesley Patrick Gonzalez reveals; 'I'm going to the local library/ Then I'm going to the charity shop' - but this high-energy debut deserves to propel them much further.  -Metro 4 Stars