I was very happy to get the new TAURUS TRAKKER album in the post as they are a band I've known about for some while and have been meaning to go see and, er, haven't quite managed it. Which for a band based a mile or two from here who play locally on a not too irregular basis should have happened by now.
Anyway, Building Ten is the band's second album following on from Between A Bank and a Funeral Parlour and it quite literally jumped out of the speakers at me right from the opening riffs of Lucky (a great song about going to the Notting Hill Carnival and having a drink or three over a rollicking tune): sort of London Cowboys meets Wilko Johnson and with a truly tasty guitar solo before starting to fade out and trip out for the ending.
21 Miles To A Water Pump is an amped-up folk song that starts with a honking tenor sax solo from Dave Wright (ex X-Ray Spex) before coming on like a T-Rex meets Dr Feelgood chugging road tune about what it's like to be somewhere that is 21 miles from the nearest water pump and uses that to tell us to stop being such spoiled people. I can releate to that. One thing is certain the lyrics that Martin Muscatt is writing and singing are well worth hearing as they Rock. Some Kind Of Zen tells us about the sort of messy break up that leaves a friend needing a floor to crash on and beers to drink while sounding like a Nikki Sudden tune. A good thing, for sure.
Bag For Life is possibly as close as they get to sounding like Drummer Alison Phillips' former bands The Raincoats and UT although that's far more Raincoats than UT, even if I think I would have only seen her in UT in the late 80's version of that band. Whatever, it's a nice double use of the Bag For Life concept as is it about cloth bags or another kind of bag...
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West London Rock n Roll is all Heartbreakers meets the Dictators while running around trying to score some of what you need all over Ladbroke Grove. The album's title track features a guest appearence from Martin Muscatt's cousin Mick Jones for a really great psych freakout of a tune complete with nightmarish lyrics about Building Ten and what goes on there.
Young Man's Trouble is a real roadblock of a tune about a young guy who is dealing to survive as he feels he has no other option. The horns in the middle of the tune act almost to break the story into two parts and it works really well.
Gambling Blues goes all Stones-y in an early 70's sense, while Push and Pull could well be about being in a pub in the 70's with all the rough and tumble going on as they fight for little or no reason other than they are having a pint a fight goes with it.
The album closes with the memorable glam stomp of Temporary. At first it seems to be about a temporary tattoo but could easily be about people who claim to be into a scene before moving onto the next big thing in a couple of weeks time. Either way, it's cool.
Taurus Trakker online
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