By David O’Neill
London rock quartet The Heat Inc release their debut album ‘Asleep In The Ejector Seat’ next weekend. There’s a wide variety of musical influences on show from beginning to end, from early punk to blues-based rock and heavy riffage, all held together by the vocal style of Jon Dodd. It reminds me a bit of Robert Smith (The Cure) crossed with Iggy Pop, particularly on ’98′, but a lower register.
A thumping drum beat and guitar riff opens ‘Souvenir’ before Dodd’s vocals carry in the dominant style of the album. A more upbeat punky riff and vocals rip through a vocal reminiscence of previous experiences is next on offer from ‘Draw Blood For Proof’.
A booming bass line riff carries ‘Little Knuckle Charlie’ throughout. Again this has another punky feeling to it. This is carried on through ’98′ and at points it really reminds me of Iggy Pop. ‘This Thing Called Love’ is a more bluesy track and opens with a Deep South blues guitar riff: it’s possibly my favourite track on the album.
‘Akasaka Murder Squad’ returns to the punky sound whilst ‘Get Wild’ has more of a Cure sound to the musicality of the track. ‘Samson’ is so much Iggy Pop I could see him covering it with little effort. There Is a different distorted guitar sound to this track compared to the others. The final track, ‘Ultraviolence’ has a more acoustic opening and is much slower than the others on the album but is actually very good.
Altogether this is an interesting collection of songs and is very different to most of the other offerings currently out there. If you like The Cure and Iggy Pop then you’ll like this. If I get the chance to see them touring across South Wales at some point I could easily see myself going along.
- ‘Asleep In The Ejector Seat‘ is released on 28 July.
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