Who remembers the mid to late 90’s? Anyone? If you don’t then we insist you go back and throw yourselves into the ‘alt’ scene of that time. It was beautiful. We had MTV Europe, a channel that showed nothing but good music. It was a time when bands like Smashing Pumpkins, Hole, The Pixies, etc ruled the roost. It was an all round bad-ass time. It seems that Antipodean band Violent Soho agree with us and prove it on this their frankly awesome third album Hungry Ghost.
As soon as opener ‘Dope Calypso’ charges from the speakers you are hit by the Pixies influence with a splash of almost pop punk. It is when the awesome ‘Covered In The Chrome’ arrives that you really realise that this band are the real deal. It’s scuzzy punk rock charm with a lo-fi sensibility and it is frankly superb.
The word superb is something that will keep coming back over the course of this record. It is superb. Nothing is wasted. It is subtle when it needs to be, see ‘Saramona Red’ . It is abrasive. It is punk rock, it is alt. It has it all but mostly it just has good songs. Thirteen tracks in total but the songwriting skills of Violent Soho mean you never get bored and nothing outstays its welcome.
We mentioned the Pixies influence earlier but also throw into the mix bits of bands such as Fugazi, Nada Surf, Pavement, Weezer, y’know, all the great bands, and what you are left with is a killer album from Violent Soho. A pleasure to listen to. Go back to the 90’s. Go buy this album. Now.
