How many albums does Steve Albini produce a year? His name seems to come attached to a multitude of albums for any aspiring band with an eye firmly of raw, pure rock. The latest one to come to my attention is this, the debut album from Liverpool three piece AVENGING FORCE, who seek to impress by offering something a little different than all the other loud rock bands out there.
With so many bands like this, you get the blueprint and they create the formula instantly. They decide how they want to sound and they remain firm, saving any experimentation for the difficult second album. Avenging Force cannot be accused of that, trying to approach their genre from several different angles.
They open in ostentatious style – a rock out instrumental with big riffs, pure metal drumming with the volume gradually increasing as the time passes, until all of a sudden it’s somewhat taken you over. It leaps through many changes and isn’t self-indulgent or wanky. It’s an opening that commands your attention.
They should be commended for not feeling compelled to place lyrics over all of their songs. A few tracks on the album are purely instrumental and it’s nice to hear how those ideas develop. The best of these is ‘Big Buddy,’ a grand sounding effort that does sweep you away – it’s a clattering, semi-produced effort, built around one strong riff and surrounded with a relative chaos. It’s as many bpm’s as most of us can cope with, put it that way.
‘You’re a Superstar’ is a funk-laden jam that takes the album briefly in a completely different direction, not that it isn’t a haphazard trip throughout. It’s the moment where you could really dance to a band that before you were only prepared to mosh to.
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‘The Gentle Assassin’ is, however, one instrumental too many. It just isn’t as interesting as the others and, kind of like listening to The Mars Volta at times, you’d enjoy it a bit more if they toned down the self-indulgence a little.
Then there are the times when vocals are used, and that is just as welcome. ‘Muscle Man’ leaps from rasping rock to a nigh on indie melody. The heavy influence of The Who is most present in this track, and this is a confident song with several ideas packed into a few minutes. ‘Losing My Hair’ sounds like a punk Young Knives; and how nice to hear an English rock band not pretending to be American.
At other times they do try the more conventional – like the shouty punk of ‘Illingtown.’ ‘Seventeen And…’ is much more indie fodder, and isn’t as good as when they’re loud, but it does show that they’re willing to be more than just one thing.
It’s a testament to their songs that the album seems longer than it does. Many of the songs leap through so many phases in the short time that you are listening to them that you just presume that more seconds have elapsed. Avenging Force are the muso’s punk band, and it would be nice to see them celebrated for it in the right circles.
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