Thirty-five minutes of manic rock'n'roll energy. Ten tracks, wham-bam, thank you Mam. No messing about, no nonsense. These young rockers from Austin, Texas offer up a clear statement of intent on their fun debut album "Mouthful of Love".

Young Heart Attack have rifled their big brother's, or more likely their father's, record collections for inspiration, and mixed it with an originality and verve only the young can muster. With that effortless rock style Texan's seem born with and a clutch of great songs, the band swagger confidently through this album like veterans. On the instrumentation front it's basically a mix of 70s style guitar riffs and a few clever lifts from the classic rock canon - "Starlite" starts off exactly like The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again", the chord progression to "El Camino" is Purple's "Maybe I'm A Leo" at twice the speed. But so what? Every band has its influences, its what you do with them that counts. And what YHA have done is create their own sound and style. The band has two singers, one male, one female. The male singer's voice is already in the high-octane register, but Jennifer Stephen's even higher, clear, ringing voice compliments it perfectly. If you've got two great and distinct singers you might as well make the most of them, and YHA do, with harmony parts and male call/female recall sections in most tracks. It works brilliantly, like the B-52s in a head on collision with AC/DC. It also has the added benefit of making YHA sound rather unique, so even though the guitar style is firmly rooted in 70s classic rock (no bad thing) the band sound fresh and contemporary.

The majority of the ten tracks are from the top drawer. The aforementioned "El Camino" blasts along frenetically before breaking down into a space rock mid-section and slowly building again to a climatic close, with both singers going for it full tilt. The band ease off the gas only once, delivering an effective 12 bar in the form of "Mary Jane", played with just enough sloppiness to make it sound authentic. MC5's classic "Over and Over" is dusted off and given a good kicking. Unless you know the original, you would never realise this is a cover, such is the standard of YHA's own tracks. The album closes with the sing-a-long (well the whole album is sing-a-long to be honest) "Misty Rowe" which features a killer Jimmy Page sounding riff in the bridge section and an instantly memorable chorus.

And that's it, a short sharp shock. It's important with this kind of direct party rock'n'roll not to outstay your welcome and YHA seem to have grasped that fact early on. The whole album flies by and comes to a close just when you're really getting in to it, but importantly well before you have a chance to tire of it. Might as well stick it on again then!

 

DUCK