Black Moth, Anatomical Venus - album review

These are the words of Black Moth, a five-piece grunge/doom metal outfit who are delivering us their third, and heaviest, record to date, describing how they feel about touring it.

Everything that happens here comes laden with a gritty guitar lick that kicks you square in the nether-regions and dares you to get back up for more. And we do, 10 times in fact, as each and every tune is a stormer.

They have sat down in a room, demanded each other to summon the greatest riffs and melodies their fingers could muster, accepted the challenge, and absolutely smashed it.

We really can't wax lyrical enough about the majestic, snarling metal that takes place here, matched only by the gross-out nature of the album cover.

That jumpy electro interlude to lead single Moonbow that sounds just like a chase level on an early Sega Megadrive classic action platformer game. The frantic and growling Sisters Of The Stone that pays more than a little tribute to their influences Red Fang and Mastodon. That mesmerising, soaring guitar solo in A Thousand Arrows. The intro to Pig Man is another exceptional stomp across the eardrums, while Severed grace, too, is a full frontal assault led on by thunderous percussion throughout.

Each and every song is a potential hit for this group - not one slinks off into the shadows to hide or lingers around like a bad smell. To emphasise further, the moment one song fades into the recent past of your mind another instantly hooks you forward again by sweeping you up in another swirling riff-fest.

Vocalist Harriet Hyde eagerly leads the way with her metal goddess version of Yeah Yeah Yeah's Karen O taking us all on her merry dance like a pied piper with a penchant for killing. Those fuzzing guitars are provided by Jim Swainston and Federica Gialanze, while slamming the bass is Dave Vachon, ably kept time on drums by Dom McCready.

The result is a tantalising record that should be played with the volume up for many weeks to come. Let's hope they don't have any of those tour nerves tonight.

Rating: 10/10

Black Moth play tonight, Tuesday, at Birmingham's Sunflower Lounge