Album Review: Ultrabomb - "Time To Burn"


Something of a punk supergroup, Ultrabomb feature the talents of ex-Husker Du man Greg Norton and former UK Subs drummer Jamie Oliver in their ranks and after three promising singles, Time To Burn marks their debut album. As evidenced on the opening title track, this is very much a band playing to its strengths with the barrelling rhythms being reminiscent of a Dropkick Murphys who'd never heard of Irish folk music. Not bad.

However, just in case you were about to tap this one down as predictable, Fear Your Gods quickly enters into the fray with a slow-building slice of menace which quickly picks up from an almost Mission style verse to a full on thrash chorus before former single Star and the frenetic I Can Make It both hark back to Norton's Husker Du past.

And so it continues throughout - while the spirit of Mould and Hart does hang heavy over this album, Ultrabomb are also savvy enough to vary the formula up enough that you'd never mistake them for a bunch of idea-free copyists. Hence former single Stickman vs Hangman bristles with a nervous energy and Bang Punk is a melodic slice of angst while a cover of the Dead Boys' Sonic Reducer to close matters shows that their influences stretch beyond the more obvious ones.

I wasn't sure what to expect going into this album but Ultrabomb have served up a good debut album here which sees them living up to the pedigree that you'd expect. Mixing angst and melody to good effect, Time To Burn is definitely worth seeking out.

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