The Vice Rags’ 2017 EP, ‘Hope The Neighbours Are Lookin’’, was a wonderfully raucous affair. Its five songs drew from a few classic styles, taking in some full throttle garage rock (‘Shut Up & Love Me’), overdriven rock ‘n’ roll (‘Out On The Street’), and even massive love for The Replacements (‘One Heart’), each track cutting loose in a superbly trashy style. Their self-penned material showed a lot of spark, but it was a supercharged garage punk rendition of Little Richard’s ‘Lucille’ that suggested that this was a band who’d be able to go all out on their follow up release.
VARIOUS ARTISTS – Deep In The Woods: Pastoral Psychedelia & Funky Folk 1968-1975
Subtitled ‘Pastoral Psychedelia & Funky Folk’, this three disc anthology from Strawberry Records delves deeply into an era where folk music adopted a more progressive approach, and prog/psych bands weren’t afraid to get whimsical. Although the music within isn’t always easily pigeonholed, the bands and artists featured cross genres and moods freely, in a way that captures a period like no other, mixing folk narratives and very English tones with the worldly haze of a prog rock experimentation and a love of jazz. Without these genre-bending pioneers, John Martyn’s ‘Solid Air’ mightn’t be the much loved masterpiece that it is, and Al Stewart might’ve been forever stuck in a Dylan-esque narrative rut. And that’s just scratching the surface.
ENUFF Z’NUFF – Finer Than Sin
Enuff Z’Nuff were once one of melodic rock’s greatest bands. Their first three albums are almost perfect distillations of AOR, power pop and glam, all wrapped in an oversized tye dye bubble. The band celebrated a brightly coloured world at a time when such things were in danger of being unfashionable, and their Cheap Trick meets Elvis Costello meets Poison sound made them square pegs in round holes, but in terms of crafting a melodic hook, the Chip Z’Nuff and Donnie Vie songwriting team were second to none.
A little over twenty years on from their classic ‘Strength’ album, Enuff Z’Nuff are a band largely trading off a well known name. As proved by their ‘Brainwashed Generation’ album from 2020, that doesn’t mean that Chip and his faceless hired hands aren’t capable of knocking out a decent tune or four, but that’s just it. Enuff Z’Nuff albums have long felt like a “knocked out” product rather than a work of art. A few good songs are propped up by second rate material and covers – occasionally even leftovers – in the name of a new record. They’ve lost the craftsmanship and consistency of old. Not to mention most of the production values.
ABOUT US – About Us
Hailing from India, About Us play a variety of rock styles, but often centre their songs around hard edged melodic rock with proggy flourishes. Despite their desire to give AOR a kick, the proggy moments won’t be enough to win over the average prog fan, and might be a little distracting for the melodic rock purist. However, if you’re able to get your head around their sometimes very busy and occasionally quirky sound, their debut album presents some very strong melodies and great songs.
AL PACINOS SISTER – Al Pacinos Sister EP
British punk band Al Pacinos Sister formed during the pandemic lockdown in 2021, but it wouldn’t be until the following year that they really exploded into life. Their ‘Trained In Karate’ and ‘DOGZ’ EPs (released in February and July of that year) marked their place as one of the UK’s noisiest underground bands. It almost immediately placed them alongside Pizzatramp and Socks On label mates Get The Fuck Out of Dodge – a role that the somewhat faceless act seemed to be taking very seriously.