When pop music doesn’t have the balls you want as the soundtrack to your day and rock music feels a bit too impenetrable or imposing, you need something with a foot in each camp. You need something like the new EP (mini-album?) from 72 Rats.
With a voice eerily reminiscent of Lloyd Cole (never a bad thing), this king rat makes a brilliant commotion, one that oozes the undeniable chops of great pop writing and then wraps it up in more rock ‘n’ roll trappings. Pop melodics meet new wave swagger meets rock groove…perfect.
‘Mellow Dramatic’ sets the tone perfectly: slightly bruised power-pop ‘n’ roll shot through with a liquid riff that you know will stay with you long after the record ends. ‘I’m Too Tired’ leans into a more rockabilly sound, but more like The Gun Club with the abrasiveness turned down than anything found in the realm of quiffs and brothel-creepers!
‘Pull Me Back’ feels like it owes something to Johnny Cash had the man in black launched his career after listening to Nirvana‘s MTV Unplugged in New York, and ‘Ready to Roll’ is a taut and tense slice of low-slung, slightly raw and wonderfully ragged rock and roll just as the Gods of Music intended.
Like all great music, 72 Rats doesn’t try to do anything too revolutionary; he embraces everything that already works – groove, attitude, riff, melody – and uses these tried-and-tested tools to fashion his own fresh take on the familiar. But more than that, it all burns down someday is simply a bunch of great songs. And that, more than anything else, is what matters.
