I know I shouldn't love the Tennessee Traincrash. I'm an old hippy who goes to Bob Dylan concerts, for God's sake. But I've got John Peel to role-model me through the absurdity of still drooling when the red meat turns up in Pavlov's trough.
This is simple music. It's raw, it's powerful, it's direct and things like it have been appearing in the Festive Fifty for as long as I've known the difference between MC5 and MC squared. If challenged, I can only insist that the way you tell this real stuff from the non-genuine trash-rock Big Mac racket is that this is ... real. There are no lie-detector moments when you suddenly catch the band looking up their own credentials. They attack it and shout it and zing it along because they mean it and because they can do it. And I know I can hear the difference.
Hayley Avron puts her voice on a hard edge and slices her way through "Tennessee Flashback". It's a perfect 2 minutes 55. She wants to go back to Tennessee because, obviously, there's a man she wants to see. I suspect that isn't all she plans. I hope he doesn't realise too late. Mark and Hayley share vocals, Alex keeps the spirit of Keith Moon hammering away in the foreground. It's a lean and savage unit. TTX's lack of bass guitar is brazenly hidden behind animal portions of drum madness and double-attack flaggelant guitar. It definitely gets a grip.
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Muscle fibre is kept twitching right on through "The Fuck You Essay" (Hayley is the kind of girl who knows that essay is a verb as well as a noun, so don't parse the title too fast). There's a Great Churning Guitar moment at 0:00. Duane Eddy would be proud, but very confused. "Singled Out" completes the journey and shows even more rabid drum bravado.
With three songs that could all be singles, this tight little promo CD marks a big goldrush claim to some over-excited media attention, with the distinct threat of live gigs that won't and don't disappoint. The Tennessee Traincrash will be ploughing through some safety rails in your town just as soon as someone has sorted out the A&R guy's lines. Ask for a Timetable from thetennesseetraincrash@elvis.com
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