By emerging in the mid-2000s, Art Brut were largely spurned by the British rock press at a time when inferior landfill bands were being heralded as frickin’ geniuses.
Instead, their riff-heavy sound and singer Eddie Argos's sardonic delivery – so perfectly distilled on phenomenal first record, Bang, Bang, Rock and Roll – soaked up plenty of blogger love at a time when music blogs' influence was peaking.
So how do the band sound in 2018? Wham! Bang! Pow! Let's Rock Out!, their first album in seven years, doesn't just echo the title of the group's debut's, it sticks to the original Art Brut blueprint.
Argos again sounds like a brattish art student tinkering with grown-up issues for the first time – not a man about to celebrate his 40th birthday. She Kissed Me (And It Felt Like A Hit) is the most celebratory song about tongue kissing you can imagine, while Kultfigr, a spiritual sequel to first single, Formed a Band, offers a wry depiction of indie success.
The album is at times held back by clean, rubbery production, which saps the riffs of some of their power, but it successfully echoes the immediacy and humour that made Art Brut so wonderful back in the day.
