Now, this is nice… not niiiice, but opening track ‘Adrenaline’ with its meandering sax has a sleazy jazzy bar-room groove with Peter Rose’s croon half-spoken, half-sung - breaking over the top. The album on the whole has some great sounds and a great vibe and that’s even before we get to the songs - 14 tracks which evoke thoughts of Edwyn Collins and Tindersticks at times - even Jarvis. The style alternates between some serious rocking out and some more downbeat and decidedly broody, sinister sounds - when we use the ‘j’ word it’s rather more Miles Davis in a shooting gallery rather than Michael Buble on Parkinson. Take the implied threat in the music of ‘Bleed Me’, while lyrically it’s wordy stuff - on ‘Nowhere’, “the world vomits like an old drunken whore sick of the beauty that’s destroyed” - a complete contrast to the subtleties of this particular track which provides a downbeat bedding. It’s a tense listen, evoking the dark balladry of Flaming Stars, or the gritty, verging-on country stylings of Bonebox. More, it’s a trawl through a well of emotions - this band were apparently formed following a couple of busted relationships and some catharsis is undoubtedly going on. Their loss is our gain.
//Calum Craig