Palma Violets – '180' album review

Palma Violets – '180'

• Rated as: 3/5

Palma Violets have been hyped as ‘the new Libertines’, saddled with saving guitar music and signed in a whirlwind to Rough Trade, so it’s no surprise ‘180’ sounds rushed – but it works. Whole heaps of thumping drums, choppy guitars and rickety organs thrash and clatter anarchically along, nodding to The Clash and The Troggs, while Sam Fryer and Chilli Jesson howl over the top. The album is also packed with in-jokes – the kind most bands iron out before letting their songs anywhere near the public. Closing track ‘14’ is rousing, but might not mean much to anyone who hasn't taken that particular night bus at 4am – and God knows who ‘Johnny Bagga Donuts’ is, but he gets a raucous shout-out regardless. That track and ‘Rattlesnake Highway’ are classic punk thrashers, while ‘All The Garden Birds’ and ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ come across a tad more psychedelic, but there’s not much here that couldn’t have been recorded any time in the last 35 years. Not that there's anything particuarly wrong with that, though. ‘180’ is back-to-basics rock ’n’ roll in all its brash, unpolished glory – and it’s a whole garage-load of fun.