Sometimes you get a band that you see play live and the sheer jaw-droping energy that the band exudes on stage somehow falls short when you hear the recorded workds on CD. To overcome this, some bands will do live recordings but by the time they've played about with and tampered around with the result, it sounds like it's been positively sanitised. But, just occasionally, something will come along where the CD lives up to the band's incendiary performances, in every last detail. This is that live CD!!! In short - it's awesome!! In long, it's awesome, explosive, aggressive, powerful, manic, adrenaline-fuelled, hi-octane, rip-roaringly rocking nuclear indie-blues that will have you leaping about the room like a maniac, every time you hear it. Opening with the amazing "Anal Blues", this band - who consist of nothing more than Lew Palgrave and Callum Christie on electric guitars, with Lew doing the vocals and operating a kick drum and cymbals with his foot!! - start things off with a blitz of electric guitar storm that suddently tails off only for this gigantic riff to start as this searing electric slide guitar effect just tears up and down your spine to stunning effect as the other guitar unleashes an unrestrained fury of electrifying proportions. Above all this, Lew unleashes this spitting torrent of raw, expansive, explosive booze-soaked vocals that just light things up like a rocket, as the whole thing is propelled by drum beats and cymbals that sound like a three-armed drummer 's playing the thing, not one guy with his foot. The song itself is more addictive than sex and every bit as mind-blowing as the piece just flares a napalm-soaked path to its breathtaking end point - and that's just the opening track!
Second up is "Coffin Dodger", powered by an initial dirty, fuzzy guitar riff, lurching drums and this amazing raw, perfectly suited vocal that flies aggressively on top as the other guitar piles in and this mega-riff just explodes into action, the whole thing this intense, electrifying, explosive hyper-barrage of guitars, solid drum beats, more guitars, churning riffs, chiming leads, angry vocals and all wrapped up in this mushroom cloud of hi-octane blues that simply can't fail to have you tearing down the walls and banging your head against what's left. Absolutely incredible stuff!!
Third track is "Offshore Syndrome", every bit as incredible as what's gone so far, with yet another massive blast of rhythm, rifing and raw vocal, that immense guitar storm the most mind-blowing guitar sound you've heard on a CD in aeons, as the sheer adiction of what you're hearing is so dangerous it should carry a government health warning. The piece twists and turns with searing slide guitar blues and crunching guitar riffs fly out of every direction. The track even dares to drop down a notch in the middle as the Thunder-like vocals of Lew Palgrave are allowed free reign over beats and bare guitar before the whole thing erupts into life and this powerful tidal wave of guitars, drum and cymbals just marches on relentlessly, effortlessly and with jaw-droping results to a massively dense and 100% staisfying degree.
If you thought that it couldn't get any better and that the final track might just be the weak link, then you'd reckoned without the almighty blues-rock-gone indie-nucleasr holocaust that is "Headcase", opning with this dense thick sludgy blast of burning guitars before that massive beat kicks in, the vocals holler to the skies and the great god riff begins as the whole thing just rages in unstoppable juggernaut fashion, the combination of every ingredient, simply magical. Why, there's even some semblance of a song hook here too, while the splinters of searing lead guitar that fly out of the speakers are t5he icing on the tastiest cake you've eaten in years. It all rolls headlong to a nirvana-like oblivion via heated guitar leads, riffs that drip sweat, beer and sonic boom from every pore, angst-drenched vocals and pure emotive firepower. This truly is every bit as good as I've described - hell no, change that - this is every bit better than I've described - it's just AWESOME!! From the finest live act I've seen in 2008, comes what will undoubtedly be one of the top 3 EP's to be relased in 2008 - this band is the wave from the future at the same time as being the nuclear blast from the past - in a just and wondrous world, theirs is the power and the glory - amen!!