Album Review: Neon Animal - "Make No Mistake"

 


I have to be honest, the initial omens for this, the second album by London sleaze-rock stalwarts Neon Animal since they evolved from their former incarnation of Bubblegum Screw, weren’t overly promising. I mean, look at that album cover fer fook’s sake! Somewhere out there is a Swedish hair metal band from 2005 or so that wants its artwork idea back I reckon...

Hold yer horses though because you definitely shouldn’t judge this book (or rather album) by its cover. Neon Animal are one of those bands who seem to have been slowly improving album by album since that first Bubblegum Screw album a decade or so ago and Make No Mistake is comfortably their strongest showing to date, finally achieving that scummy Stooges-meets-Dolls nirvana that they seem to have been aiming for since day one. Right from the feral call to arms of superb opener Rock ‘n’ Roll War, this is the sound of a band firmly firing on all cylinders as if they’ve properly worked out their strengths and are well and truly playing to them.

Sure, the Iggy, Thunders and David Jo influences are very much still present and correct but mixed in there appears to be a new found love of AC/DC with the rolling riffs on the title track and the ominous Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide channelling the Young brothers to devastating effect while the snarling album highlight Let’s Make The World Rock well and truly rips.

I Can Tell You Love Me conjures up the sleazy swagger of Danko Jones in one of his more measured moments while the more mid-paced and jangly duo of Hello L.A. and Raquel change the pace when you’re least expecting it (the latter owing a sly nod to the Lords of the New Church’s Russian Roulette) which shows this band are still learning new tricks and moving their sound forward before the lurching seasick Alice Cooper style Broken Mirror signs this one off in fine style.

Colour me impressed - with Make No Mistake, Neon Animal have well and truly upped their game to deliver a real knockout blow of an album. Time I think for the rock ‘n’ roll world to sit up and take notice of this band. If you want to check it out for yourself (and I really think you should), you can stream or buy it from the Neon Animal Bandcamp page.

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌖🌖🌖🌖🌖🌖🌖🌖🌑🌑 (8/10)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A brief return from the dead...

Image
  Yup, we're back. Don't all get excited at once. I’d been toying with the idea of doing an end of year list again this year and after a lot of umming and aahing eventually decided to go for it. As with last year, inevitably there were bumps along the way. As of the start of December, I thought this list would be around 40 albums but inevitably reading other people’s lists pointed me towards a bunch of stuff that had passed me by earlier in the year. Plus of course there’s always a few teasing buggers who put stuff out at the last possible moment. So 40 became 50 which became 60 which finally became 70. You lucky people. Actually though, reading through this list, the main thing that strikes me is that I think this might be the most musically varied end of year list that Nite Songs has ever done. From gentle acoustics through acclaimed indie veterans to punk thrash and good old fashioned scuzzy rock ‘n’ roll via some decidedly unexpected diversions (industrial folk music? Check...
Read more

Garbage Days Revisited #90: Soho Roses - "The Third And Final Insult" (1989)

Image
  "If you won't love me then I'll find someone who will!"  - Soho Roses  - So Alone The Soho Roses were a classic case of right band, wrong time. If they'd broken on to the scene in the last few years then they'd have had a ready made audience on the 21st century power pop scene and probably be regulars at Some Weird Sin and similar club nights in the Smoke. The reality? They broke through towards the tail end of the '80s and got lumped in with the dying embers of the Soho glam scene, leaving behind one sadly underappreciated album and a few EP's before self-combusting. In a way, I sort of see the Roses as a British version of Enuff Z'Nuff. Not so much in terms of their sound but more of the fact that they were a group crowbarred in with glam who weren't really a natural fit there and kind of paid the price for it - I've always thought Enuff Z'Nuff sounded more like a Britpop band with flashbomb guitars than a hair metal band. Oh sure, ...
Read more

Album Review: The Fades - "Night Terrors"

Image
  Hailing from South London, the Fades are gaining a reputation of one of the premier garage rock bands in the capital these days and, as with a few albums we've reviewed in these webpages of late, Night Terrors  was written during the lockdown as it was a recurring feature of life for the band's frontman Dave during the lockdown. As befits its title and subject matter, Night Terrors  is an off-kilter effort which might take a few listens to get into but rewards those who persevere with it. Certainly, the discordant vocals and guitars often give the impression of the whole operation being on the verge of collapse on the likes of The Pessimist  and Known It All Along  while Lost My Job  goes into XTC/Nightingales style post-punk territory. However, the likes of People In General  show that they can rein the weirdness in and build up an intriguing multi-part epic which starts off as tuneful new wave before drifting into a nightmarish state-of-the-nation ...
Read more