New Blood - The New Rock And Roll - Volume 2

This compilation album is a great introduction to a new wave of rock bands who you will have read a lot about, but maybe actually heard any music by until now. And despite the fact the NME would like you to think they invented the so called "New Rock Revolution" as they like to call it, this compilation goes outside what that publication considers to be rock & roll and offers up more underground bands alongside the likes of the Hives and the Datsuns.

Opening band Love As Laughter sum up the feel of the album - retro sleazy riffs played with raw undiluted emotion. London's The Divine Brown three chord wonders impress with their rock n roll sermon "Kranked Up, Really High" while two ex-pats from Sweden and one guy from Brixton make up Speed Killers with the impressively offensive sounding "Jesus Died So We Could Ride". Alongside the relative unknowns are a series of bands who the NME have religiously over hyped inc. The Datsuns (raw), International Noise Conspiracy (average), The Parkinsons (great live, but unimaginative on record) and the Von Bondies who are inspirational.

Ten Benson donate a track from their new Artrocker album "Satan Kidney Pie" with "Come Home To Me" which has a great Dick Dale style guitar riff and elegantly tortured vocals. The overrated suit wearing Swedish oddballs The Hives regurgitate their Stooges obsession with their tired and weary songs and "State Control" is no exception and ultimately it's the less well known bands who impress the most like The Mooney Suzuki, Beachbuggy and Vue.

If you enjoy good old fashioned rock'n'roll punk blues mash ups then this is the album for you. Music doesn't get any more real than this and the production is rough and ready which is perfect for the live feel these tracks have. The choice of bands on this album shows that this is more than a cash in or the latest in the production line hyped other lesser publications would back. Pure genius!!!

Nicholas Paul Godkin

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