Album Review: The Pulsebeats - "Lookin' Out"
Hailing from Spain and signed to Rum Bar Records, it's perhaps not a surprise that there's a very noticeable Ramones influence hanging over this new offering from the Pulsebeats (heck, there's even a song here called She Sings Like Joey Ramone !). And let's be honest, these kind of things can go one of two ways. As this field seems to get more and more crowded by the year, there's been more than a few bands offering decidedly lazy rip-offs of the Ramones sound while others have the nous to put a twist on the formula to avoid sounding too derivative. And I'm pleased to report that Lookin' Out is definitely one of the latter type of records - yes, you'd have to be pretty cloth-eared not to spot the Ramones influence but at least these guys are smart enough to do something a bit different with it. If anything, these guys owe just as much to the Buzzcocks' lightning fast power-pop or the Flamin' Groovies more melodic late '70s phase as they do...