Review by Harry Paterson

The previous evening Dave had dragged him along to see some crappy indie band and, the alternative being far more attractive than listening to their shoe-gazing monotony, he’d gotten hammered instead.

Pulling open the door with a trembling hand and groaning as the summer sun lasered into his eyes, the malicious drummer in his skull set about his work with glee. “Aww, Christ almighty, not you!”

“Charming” grinned a sickeningly chirpy Dave. “Morning to you too, sunshine” Mick sighed and turned back into the flat. Dave followed, shutting the door behind him, and enthusiastically waved a plastic bag.

“Have I got a treat for you, my man!”

Mick sighed again. Dave was music mental. Always bugging him with his latest obsessions, dragging him to gigs and subjecting him to endless demos and downloads from bands no one in their right mind would give a second’s attention to. Mick was strictly a metal man. All this emo and indie crap Dave was into did his head in. Spotty, pubescent drones whine about how hard their lives were or effete, floppy fringed, middle class ponces churning out their turgid dirges. Who needed that shit?

Shovelling coffee into two mugs and setting the kettle to boil, Mick could hear Dave firing up the hi-fi and the clatter as a disc slid into the CD drawer. Aw, Jesus, please no! “Sit yourself down, mate, and cop a load of this!” Dave grabbed the coffee mugs with one hand and scrabbled for the remote with other.

Mick had been here before. Too many times. Resistance was futile. Better to just go with the flow until Dave ran out of steam and the torture stopped.

“Are we seated comfortably, children?” enquired a smirking Dave in his irritating TV presenter’s voice. “Good. Then we shall begin”.

Mick leaned his head back against the ratty sofa and closed his eyes. He’d got a lot on today and tackling it with the hangover from hell was going to take all his meagre stock of willpower. Slowly, despite his best efforts, the music penetrated his hung-over consciousness. A nausea-inducing blast of crackling, radio static gave way to a sultry female vocal. Sultry, yes, thought Mick, but dirty too. And dangerous. Like a Barbie Doll in stockings with smudged eyeliner and a switchblade.

“This one’s called Blush” Shouted Dave over the pounding bass riff and fuzz-soaked guitars now accompanying Bad Barbie’s tortured emoting. “Totally awesome, yeah?”

Mick nodded reluctantly. It was good. Mind you, first track and all that. Rest of it was probably garbage.

The opening track gave way to a stomping, 4/4 time, mid-tempo rocker with the band ripping up a storm and Bad Barbie, of course, giving it big licks. Christ, this shit was good!

“It’s not Courtney Love, is it?” Asked Mick and then immediately shook his head. “No. It sounds a bit like her but this bird’s definitely got her own thing going on” “Does she ever!” agreed Dave.

“It’s, I dunno, kinda grunge but not grunge. A bit metal but not really metal, you know?” “Yep” nodded Dave. “They’re probably something-core, or whatever new label Kerrang invented this week!”

“Works, though. Christ, this is great!”

They sat in companionable silence as the band hammered through the album. First an old-school punk riff, all Johnny Thunders smeared over The Ramones, then a Seattle-styled artillery barrage of fuzz and distortion.

The vocals moving effortlessly from smoky seduction to screams of rage and then, just like that, the little-girl lost reappearing as if Bad Barbie had never existed.

A kaleidoscope of styles, genres, hinting at things past yet, somehow, the music always much more than the sum of its parts.

The final track, a biting, mocking slab of irony called You’re So cool faded out on, it seemed, the same discordant, white-noise static that had started the album.

Mick exhaled. “Jesus, Dave, that was amazing! I’ve got to buy this album! Who the hell are these guys?”

Dave winked smugly. “Told ya, dude. They’re called Japanese Voyeurs and the album’s called Yolk”