With a plethora of current bands influenced by the late seventies and early eighties, its refreshing to find a band who go a little further back for their inspiration. In fact, if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then both Bowie and Bolan should feel very flattered indeed. This album was made in 2004, but sounds like something recently recovered by aliens from a NASA space probe launched around 1971.  There are a couple of give-away’s to its more recent origins. For a start, the lyrics are quite steamy and guaranteed to upset the moralising blue rinse virgin brigade, were they to listen.  The cover features a rather shapely and attractive nude woman whom has the track listing hand written on her back in black felt. Nice. I doubt they would have got away with any of this over thirty years ago. Another nice touch is that the CD is designed to resemble a vinyl record, only smaller obviously. As a package it’s all rather good.

This band had previously made an album under the group name ‘Convoy’. Do not be fooled, it is not the style of music found here, which along with their image, has undergone something of an overhaul since those days. I have long lectured my friends on the importance of image. A strong image can be instrumental in capturing the record buying publics attention. In reality it has no bearing on the music what so ever. However, I just cannot listen to bands that stand on stage in jeans and sweatshirts and appear unfamiliar with the basics of personnel hygiene. However, a shower, a haircut with a floppy fringe, a bit of slap, and hey presto, my attention has been captured. What is the point of all this? Well ‘Convoy’ have undergone this type of change, bar the personnel hygiene which im sure has always been first class. Where as previously they wore jeans and sweatshirts the lead singer, Jason Hill, now reminds me of Trevor Boulder of Spiders from Mars fame, whilst the remainder of the band look like Duran Duran, quite a change and for me it adds to the appeal. 

I was always struck by how a TREX album sounded fun and I get the same feeling here. Indeed, one track, ‘Letter To Dominique’ is simply ‘Metal Guru’ with different lyrics and consequently could have been on a TREX album, but still I love it.  It sounds like they had a party in the studio whilst recording, no boring endless guitar solos to be found here. The music may not be high on originality but it is high on enthusiasm, classic Glam rock circa 1971-73, at least the first eight tracks are. On the final two they have a stab at slower ballad type numbers and, frankly, having endured them a couple of times I have no intention of doing so again. It is clearly not their forte. The production is quite rough, but deliberately so, so as to be more rock rather than commercial sounding. It’s a fair debut that is worth hearing. I hope they co