HEAVY LUNGS - ALBUM REVIEW

Heavy Lungs - All Gas No Brakes (Alcopop! 

Records)

Release Date: Out Now

This is the debut album from hotly tipped Bristol outfit but if I hadn't told you that and you'd given it a listen you'd be thinking "wow, these guys are great, I need to get in to their earlier stuff". Well you can't, this IS their earlier stuff. So get into it now, OK? 'All Gas No Brakes' opens with 'Matryoshka', a song that takes the urgency of IDLES and mixes in elements of Gogol Bordello and System of a Down which, if you stop and think about it, is one hell of a start to any record. Title track 'All Gas No Breaks' is an altogether more swagger affair with a throbbing rhythm section providing the drive for Mark E. Smith inspired vocals and wildly scything guitars. 

The clattering drum opening of 'Late To The Party' would grab the attention of even the most distracted gig goer while 'Dancing Man' is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre come to life with menace and fear dripping out of every stabbed note. There's a more 'Bleach' era Nirvana-esque vibe to 'Angle Grinder' before 'Plagiarism' preaches from a broken pulpit to a congregation of broken spirits. This isn't music for everyone but it's music people will either hate or become absolutely fanatic about, with 'Head Tilter' making that point brutally as the guitars grind and stab with unremitting force and I love it. The onslaught doesn't let up on the bad-trip of 'It's Been' and the furious garage punk of 'Rock, Paper, Scissors'.

Penultimate track '2 Hot 2 Ride' might sound like the title of a song from a motoring movie franchise but instead it's a 95 second joyride through the streets of Bristol under the influence of distortion. The album finishes, leaving you breathless, with 'Sometimes People Just Explode' (I want that on a T-shirt please) as the band make their closing argument for someone to write a horror movie based on this album just so it can have an awesome soundtrack. Brutal, unrelenting, unapologetic and truly original sounding stuff from a band taking their first swing at an album. Bullseye. 

More information: https://www.facebook.com/heavylungsband