Pity the bassist. Superfluous since The White Stripes and further condemned as an anachronism by Royal Blood, our four-stringed friend is the first victim of 21st-century touring budget cuts. Wolverhampton’s God Damn – singer-guitarist Thom Edward and drummer Ash Weaver – have been bassless since a life-threatening accident robbed them of their third member, producing two albums of gnarly glam grunge, situated at the garglier end of the current Britrock mob.
This third, however, feels tellingly two-dimensional: the rabble and roar of Dead To Me, Again Again and Fake Prisons are box-tickingly ferocious, but there’s little colour or melodic panache to sugar the gravel. Any hopes that a song called It Bites might metal-up Calling All The Heroes, for instance, are dashed by more rabid gnashing.
At its best, Oh No recalls The Black Keys, I’ll Bury You totters along on a slasher carnival groove, Ghost hammers Merseybeat into grotesque new shapes and closer Easily Misbled, an elegant mariachi acoustic noir, is a refreshing respite. But too much here is sub-Dinosaur Pile-Up slush, dredged, ironically, from Britrock’s bottom end.
