Is it really four years since "Day of Death by Bono Adrenalin Shock"? It is.
THAT FUCKING TANK, flirting with the pop celebrity that they never wholly disdained, even in their most militantly obscure side projects, have recorded an album that could (but hopefully won't) have them on Jonathan Ross and a tour of Academy Venues by the end of the year.
This new album is huge fun. It has monster (sometimes recognisable) riffs. It does cow bell and wooden block drumming. Two minutes of it is more than the ear can bear but given fifteen minutes of exposure you'll be yammering for more and howling for LOUDER like everyone else who comes in close contact.
The unifying force is making more out of less. Half a drum kit and one well amplified and craftily played baritone guitar set out to impersonate Hawkwind, Reef, Wagner, Springsteen, Foo Fighters and Tank knows who else. Abbott and Islip are Professors of Rock Culture if nothing else, so it wouldn't do to guess too much about the subplots, cheeky thefts, honest homages and subliminal reworkings to be Where's-Wally'd out of the album. Full on, the holy racket is sublime. At your leisure, and for pleasure, the puzzles and treasures can be teased out later.
Something's always happening, everything's changing and there's always a precipice to leap off or a dizzying cliff wall to bang your head against. Thrills, spills and shortage of breath are guaranteed. There are four big tunes, two smaller ones and three fragments.
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As a lesson in how to demolish an audience with your three closing numbers TANKNOLOGY is out on its own. "Bruce Springstonehenge" suckers you in with warped familiarity and a huge grin of pleasure on a massive rock of grumbling bassy guitar and punchy drumming. Dancing in The Dark gone feral! Crowd gone mental! But it's only two minutes eleven seconds long and you spin round, cheated, to shout for more. You get what seems to be the opening to a triple album prog concept work - the portentous "Prince Ludwig of Bavaria" that immediately turns into a four minute plunge across the Grand Canyon in a reinforced bucket with an aircraft engine and eight wheels. Bonkers.
By then the gradual wind up and fly for the Final Meltdown of "Stephen Hawkwind" gives you exactly the kind of Silver Machine that (by now) you would expect and deserve.
The louder you play this stuff the better it gets. Even the NME gave it 8.
www.thatfuckingtank.com
www.myspace.com/landsandbody
http://www.gringorecords.com/
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