Pinact

Two-pieces may be in vogue for the summer months (to hell with the body shamers and notions of beach ready bodies) but they’ve certainly been in fashion in the music industry for a while. You can see why, there are economic and space benefits when you have fewer people in a band and it makes things an awful lot easier to arrange, organise and pull together.

There are plenty of noisy duos around at the moment, but Pinact show that not all duos are alike. They may be noisy like other current two-pieces Honeyblood and Royal Blood, but for one, they don’t have blood in their name, and secondly, they have a bit more depth to their sound than those acts.

The grunge comparisons have been done to death with Pinact, and while the comparison provides a good starting point to get into the band, there is a lot more on offer on debut album Stand Still And Rot. Tracks like ‘Limbs’, which shuffles with a world weary outlook that kids of this age shouldn’t be comfortable with and closing track Novembore indicate that this is not just a turn the amps up to 11 and rock out type of group.

When they do turn up the volume though, they do it well, easily muscling into the upper ranks of the number of Scottish fuzz-based assassins that are marauding the country these days.

‘Scars’ will be your feel good hit of the summer, so make sure you whack that up loud and sing along, but this is an album that positively bristles with exciting angst wrapped up in a firestorm of guitar and drum bursts. ‘Up or Down’ contains melodies that the Pixies would kill for, and like all of the best pop, the sweet melodies mask some deep, dark and heavy lyrics. Whether you want to thrash around or have some introspective moments, this is a record that will give you exactly what you are looking for.

Pinact have developed an excellent (and well-deserved) reputation for their live shows and it looks as though the album will add more fuel to the fire that the band is serving up at the moment.