New Heavy Sounds Volume Two

Various Artists
New Heavy Sounds Volume 2
(New Heavy Sounds)
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We recently witnessed 'Rock Week' on The X Factor, during which Louis berated some contestants for sneakily playing pop music anyway. "That's not rock!" he spluttered as act after act seemed to defy their paymasters, until one lass - Sophie Habibis - performed a power ballad rendition of the Bon Jovi standard, 'Livin On A Prayer'. "Now," said Louis, moved to stand up from his chair. "That's rock!" Oh no monsieur Louis, this is rock.

The New Heavy Sounds label prizes itself on delivering tinatus to the naive, via a collection of bands united by The Big Riff and their bloodthirsty, insatiable desire to surf it. This second compilation feels like the definitive article too; where the debut was raw and foot-finding, the sequel is confident and powerful enough to nuke a cow like some twisted sonic weaponry experiment.

Luminaries are aplenty: DZ Deathrays sound like Pac Man having been armed with a fuzz bass on 'Rad Solar', Mojo Fury lose their mojo and simply dish out the fury on 'Deep Fish Tank', while Tweak Bird stomp like glitter rocking Hells Angels on 'Lights In Lines'.

The proof always lies in the more mysterious acts however, and there are plenty of those to devour: the singer of Skull Defekts resembles Ming The Merciless transmitting evil commands into your brain, while Gum Takes Tooth endeavour to recreate the sound of Kenneth Anger having a very lousy nightmare, with a combination of demented fuzz, Satanic whisperings and what sounds like Gizmo from Gremlins being tortured. Special mention also goes out to Black Moth, whose 'Spit Out Your Teeth' is a perfectly black-lipsticked gothic grunge anthem. In fact, I rather feel like Eric Da-Raven from The Crow after listening to that. Caw! Caw!