Scurge
Cat With The 45 Calibre Claw
With some tasty erotic cover-art balanced by a title that falls a long way short of rolling off the tongue (something which the nipple in the picture seems to have no trouble doing) it’s impossible to predict what might be on this CD.
However, there’s no need for any mystery or extensive investigation as I conveniently have all the tools I need to find out (that would be a CD player then!) and I’ll tell you all about it.
Instantly stuffing a fist down the throat, ‘Horse’ is a fast-rock track with torn vocals that hit a 10.5 on the ‘grrr scale’. The guitars splice up a two chord verse with intelligent slides and the bass follows suit a little lower down the scale. To get an impression of this band, you need to imagine Godsmack pushing up their beats per minute (to somewhere around Green Day’s ‘Burnout’) with a slightly higher pitched vocal.
Second track, ‘God Botherer’, is quite similar to the opener in terms of pace and content with the guitar calling the tune for the rest to follow. The opening riff has a few punchy moments before the track settles in. ‘The Heights’ adds a slight variation to the theme with the same shower of guitars being played to a more grinding drum beat that brings on feet stamping and head nodding before the final track, ‘Cut Throat’, which sees a return to the faster pace but with a few creative additions and a more retro style to the guitar riff.
Scurge can seriously pump out aggressive rock with plenty of fierce guitars and with drums that are definitely up to scratch. This record also benefits from spotless production that gives each instrument it’s own place in the mix. The only criticism is that the first three tracks are so vastly similar that I couldn’t actually say anything about ‘Straw Dogs’ that hadn’t already been said about ‘Horse’ and ‘God Botherer’.
In fairness they’ve suggested that they can add some variation by subtly restraining their pace in ‘The Heights’ and by doing a few new things in the last track. However, unless they can make each song more distinct they are going to face the same barrage of abuse that Andrew WK gets.
Written by Smith on
