Echoes and dust

Hailing from Bristol, but eschewing the traditional ‘Bristol Sound’ in favour of a power rock / grunge kind of thing, come The Chemists. A muscular five piece not afraid to wear their influences on their sleeves, these guys write massive rock songs built to fill stadia, even though they are still playing small clubs, but on this evidence I suspect they won’t be for long.

Inhabiting musical territory somewhere between the Foo Fighters and Muse, unsurprising as one of the producers on the album is Adrian Bushby who has both of those bands on his CV, just around the corner from Feeder and pretty much next door to Biffy Clyro, they produce polished anthems and beautifully balance aggression with melody and hooks.

First track ‘This City’, which is prefaced with a 30 second intro involving the distinctive tones of Richard E. Grant doing a spoken word thing with the lyrics to the song, a nice touch, launches the album with appropriate momentum, driven by a dirty bass sound and the growl of Johnny Benn’s vocal.

This is quickly followed by one of the standout tracks on the record, and first single, ‘Milk & Honey’. A great lead riff, a pounding beat and sing-a-long chorus fuel this song, it’s a right proper rock club stomper and no mistake.

If I’m being picky I’d say that ‘Theories Of Doctor Lovelock’ is a little one paced, only the instrumental ‘Waiting’ really attempts to do something different, more than a tad derivative, I could have a pretty good stab at naming these guys record collection, and the cover of Brittany’s ‘Toxic’ is rather gratuitous, but in the face of belters like ‘Radio Booth’ these are small things to have to forgive.

If these guys get the right exposure, and on the back of some blistering live performances, The Chemists could well be soon filling those stadia that their music is so patently built for.

Top Tracks: 'Milk & Honey', 'Radio Song'.

Released November 02 on Distiller