Various Acts - 'The New Rock 'N' Roll Volume 2' (Artrocker)
4/5
By: Toby L
As tumultuously impacting and hard-hitting as a two-hour, drunken game of paint-ball in the dark, and as sonically enjoyable, is this - ArtRocker's second compilation-LP, 'New Blood - The New Rock 'N' Roll Volume 2'. (In other words, 22 songs that are so 2002 and hip-grindingly energetic that you'd best take a three-hour spell of resuscitation in the local surgery by the time its 66 minutes pass you by.)
From start to finish, the pace never lets up, each and every tune segueing into each other with the same ragged, blissful subtlety as a classical-concerto, yet, obviously, with none of the infuriating stiff-upper-lippyness and also with enough leather-jackets to pose a serious threat to the world's population of cows... But, when it all sounds this good, stuff the mooing beasts*.
Upon unadulterated exposure to the Swedish power-house of charging drums and frantic riffage as implemented by both The Hives and (International) Noise Conspiracy to The Datsuns' grisly monster of a fast-f**k anthem 'MF From Hell', you wonder when a ballad will turn up to chop everything up into some form of order...
Fortunately, such a soppy, cop-out contraption never does, and the glorious, almost-Joy Division 'Furious Desires' as executed by The Hotwires is placed next to East and South London's most fiercest guitar-merchants, The Beatings and Ten Benson, in a joyous move. As you would expect, by the time more gratuitous swearing arrives in the form of The D4's 'Rock 'N' Roll Motherf**ker', the soulful swagger of The Vue soon sweeps by, and Karen-O's lilting growl manifests within the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' 'Miles Away', leaving only The Catheters' vitriolic blast of 'Disguise Myself' and closing on Modey Lemon's 'You Bug Me' to further exhilarate and force upon the listener such a head-crushingly sweaty blow. Ouch; but, akin to the sensational experience of delivering punches in a mosh-pit, pain has never felt this good.
So, yeah, that's the new rock 'n' roll, then. And, damn, these are great musical-times that we live within; why not celebrate, rejoice the fact - and play this album in such a way as The Divine Brown suggest - Kranked up, Really High. You'd be a Westlife fan not to.
* OK, maybe keep the cows alive and just have similarly street-wise plasticy things that look like leather... Deal?
Artists in this article: Various Acts
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