By Jim Rowland
Masked garage-punk crusaders Thee Headshrinkers have been not-so-quietly gaining a pretty fearsome live reputation across the country this year, and now it’s time for them to unleash their debut album ‘Head Cheese’ upon an unsuspecting public.
This Hastings-based masked three-piece, comprising of Rob (stocking), Gino (balaclava) and Stiv (dolls head), have concocted a heady brew of punk rock, garage rock and gritty rock’n’roll with the influence of The Eighties Match Box B-Line Disaster, The Fall and the Sex Pistols stated quite clearly and proudly from the band from the start.
That influence of Mark E Smith can clearly be heard in the vocal delivery on tracks like ‘Going Down’, ‘Sunday Driver’, ‘The King Is Dead’ and ‘Mutha Fucka With A Chainsaw’. ‘Johnny’ and ‘Save Your Life’ provide further garage-rock goodness whilst ‘Dallas Texas’ and ‘Sweet Caroline’ are quality slices of pure old school punk rock.
Elsewhere, ‘Derivative’ has a wild rockabilly twang to it, with the wildness of ‘Motorbike’ and ‘Head On’ having a slightly more R’n’B feel to them. The fusion of garage rock and blues of the awesome closing track ‘Travelin Man’ ends the album in suitably wild and heavy fashion.
Wild, loud, dirty, gritty, catchy and a whole lotta fun, ‘Head Cheese’ a pretty incendiary debut album, and comes highly recommended here.
- ‘Head Cheese‘ will be released on Friday (29 November).
- Thee Headshrinkers play an in-store album launch show at Tough Love Records in St Leonards on Saturday (30 November).
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