Beasts of Bourbon
Little Animals

   Over the years, everyone softens... how many rebels have we seen start out roaring only to end up playing like the syrupy Beatles of "Let it be" (do you need some names?).

  Not him. Once again, after a full ten years since the last record, Tex Perkins has gathered his bourbon beasts, picked up from the worst bars in the Australian bush, endangered animal fighting for survival and therefore even more dangerous. Of the old ones, only faithful Spencer P. Jones remains, while Kim Salmon and Boris Sujdovic have returned to play live with the Scientists, and who knows whom that chubby James Baker is with. The result is a consistent and compact album that, if the world weren't spinning in the crappy way it's gotten used to lately, would be listed among the best of 2007 as it comes to an end.

 The album starts with the usual distorted riff pilfered from the Stones, but "I Don't Care About Nothing Anymore" is far nastier right from the title: no mercy, a scorching three minutes with Tex's voice even more rasping, alcohol and cigarettes do him good, to hell with health, there's always time to die. "I'm Gone" has guitars that are as heavy as the MC5 and the Stooges were in their own way; another intense track played to death, Spencer's solos alone are worth the price of admission.

  You say: "well, now he'll calm down"... and instead, no! Down with the scrap metal that pants and puffs in "I told you so" with bass thumps that make the foundations tremble and him detailing his truth: when you're born under a bad sign, everything else can go to hell. "Master and Slave" raises the stakes once more, hypertrophied guitars seasoning a harshly epic ballad with the beautiful openings of the lead guitar.

  Only halfway through the album does Perkins let us breathe with the title track romantically desperate and nocturnal as only his abrasive voice made of coarse-grained sandpaper can be. But it's just an illusion: "The Beast I Came To Be" is a punk ride loaded with fuzz, "Sleepwalker" is a gut-wrenching blues where the rubber in the speakers seems to inflate following the veins in Tex's neck, the guitars are so laden with feedback that at the end of the track the silence hurts your ears terribly...