If you've been tuning in here for any length of time, you'll know your reviewer has a truly fractious relationship with anything easily categorisable as 'metal', especially these days where even the idea of anything approaching class hard rock seems virtually extinct. The fact that a bunch of chancers as crap as The Darkness can capture the public's imagination so easily illustrates how far we seem to have fallen in this respect.
So, when confronted by a bunch of Texans with a Flying V-wielding logo, your reviewer can't lie about going into spasms of orgasmic excitement. Yet lo and behold: YOUNG HEART ATTACK may have a horrible name and have supported both Ozzy and the bleedin' Darkness, but they're very much from ye olde school of hard rock where AC/DC's Bon Scott still dribbles Jack Daniels from on high and Phil Lynott still struts around, fist clenched aloft and asking the girls in the front row if any of 'em "want a little more Irish in 'em."
So, against all odds, I can't deny that I actually really like "Misty Rowe." Sure, it's all ridiculous axe posturing a-go-go (Texan style), but it's got riffs that would have Angus Young salivating and the vocals sound like Ozzy and Cher being blasted by Sam Peckinpah. In this case that's a good thing and - providing you can handle a degree of widdly guitar solo - you might find yourself pleasantly surprised by this.
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The additional tracks don't do them any major harm either. "Radioland Hit Squad" revels in a brilliant title and comes off a dream, kinda like early Led Zep meets Motorhead lite and it's not the merest jot ironic, which is probably another good thing. Actually, after all the time we spent praising The D4 and their like last year it would be churlish to complain about this as it's made very much in the same kind of image. Final track "Hot Wired", meanwhile, goes on from a mean and moody intro to glory in wondeful cliche (e.g: "California dreamin', baby, under the sun") and your reviewer seriously considers joining them as he looks out his window to see a gale blowing up and the first flakes of snow falling. Brrr.
Young Heart Attack, then, by rights shouldn't really work and - what's more - this writer shouldn't really like it. Sometimes, though, mean riffs, dumb posturing and more energy than the national grid on Boxing Day really are enough. For the duration of this EP at least, YHA prove this point in all its' delicious crassness.
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