The Lowriders / Fury

The Lowriders
Fury
(Adrenalin Records)
* *

Caught perhaps, in a bout of their own fury, The Lowriders' debut mini album is a largely rigid and incoherent submission blemished with laboured reinterpretations of classic, prog and stoner rock. There’s emphatically very little unique material, making frequent nods to Led Zepellin and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, while the elements which do work sound as if they are shoehorned ad hoc across the album.

A stunning drum routine on 'Switch to Power' swings in full pelt which then shrinks into a mediocre verse and rudimentary bass riff. Likewise, 'Hey Little Sister' innovates with a stark new wave melody, building a sulky rhythm before fracturing into a power chord chorus from which it can’t recover. Its lyricism seems almost deliberately daft, shifting between farce (“I am the sea, I am the sky”) and misguided polemics (“victimization of this fascist state, they need no reason, for the things that they hate”).

When the band actually gut the posturing and cool the mood during 'Earth’s on Fire', it starts to seem like their real talent might be hidden somewhere underneath all that brazen energy. This one reprieve shows Fury could have made an impact, if only it’d been less ferocious.