This 5-track offering showcases the sharp, powerful, confrontational power pop that's currently being bandied about by Manchester’s TWISTED WHEEL.
Like the famous birthplace of Northern Soul they’ve surely taken their name from, 100mph drumming is at times the only thing keeping this oddly pitched tearaway subway punk from going right off the rails. Scally rhymes pepper the rattling machine gun fire as it gathers momentum, and the lead vocals are like something you’d hear in a poetry workshop for violent offenders.
The descending crash chords set the pace of the blindly repetitive ‘She’s A Weapon’ as the mentally unstable vocal fires out the title in a reflex action. Compulsive, exciting and truthful, this offers a fly-on-the-wall view of life without hope with no punches pulled.
Slowing it down with ‘Strife’, lurching, slouching jail tales unfold, with surreal yet inevitable truths in them, the mid-tempo sound decorated with intricate country licks;
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“Painting pictures of lives/Caught in a strife” declares the lead vocal, as the throw-together sound makes no sense and perfect sense all at once. Like the jammed out finale ‘What’s Your Name’, there are delicate touches and moments of intricacy in the skin-tightened band’s unfinished sound, which is deceptively strong.
‘Racket’ is aptly titled, another all-out assault on the senses with a tightened DIY ethic. It’s coupled with lyrics about scoring crack, domestic violence, thieving, robbing and dead-end jobs, for which the frantic tempo seems just about right. Relentless and psychotic, this brims with frustration and evil intent. Foolhardy and rightly cynical, there’s hidden wisdom in every one of these songs, all of them dripping with sardonic humour and reckless desperation. Brilliant.
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