By Monk
These Italian classic garage rockers don’t exactly display the same work ethic as the insect from which they take their name. It took them five long years to deliver their debut album (reviewed in these very pages back in July 2021). Back then, I defiantly declared that I was looking forward to hearing more from the Etruscan band: well, it’s just as well I didn’t hold my breath as it has taken them another three and a half years to get around to following it up…
Contrarily, just as on that debut offering, these waspish garage rockers live up to their name by producing another stinging collection of songs filled with the sort of buzzy riffs which fly around inside your head long after the first listen, pollinating your aural cortices with their honey sweet harmonies and melodies and leaving an extremely sweet after taste even more delicious than that of the balsamic vinegar for which their home town is perhaps better known…
Kicking off with the sort of riff that harkens all the way back to Chuck Berry, and which would make Angus Young blush with envy in its simplistic elegance, this album immediately lives up to its title by transporting us to another place, the back alleys of paradise city, where rock ‘n’ roll is still dirty but glamorous, sleazy and intoxicating, enthralling and magical in its sheer unadulterated, lascivious lewdness.
Equally at home in the back alley bar rooms of Boston or lounging in the degradation of the Strip, The Hornets draw deep from the well of classic garage proto-punks such as MC5 and The Stooges as much as they do British glunk equivalents like Mott and The Quireboys, while giving modern pretenders such as The Darkness more than a run for their unshiny shillings: the likes of ‘Abeline’ and ‘Ballast Song’ (in particular) definitely should have the Hawkins boys looking over their sequin clad shoulders and wondering just who the fuck took their sound to the next level.
It’s perhaps somewhat ironic that my personal stand outs on this impressive collection are the final triptych of toons: the rambunctiously rowdy ‘Nothing To Lose’, the manic mayhem of ‘Profiteer Mad Man’ and the Gogol-esque folksy drinking anthem ‘On My Way Home’ (yeah, how many times have we said that boyz and gurlz?).
- ‘Another Place To Stay‘ is out now.
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