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No one’s expecting them to come back with another Beaver Patrol, but it’s not unreasonable to wonder what the point of a PWEI comeback is 17 years after the zeitgeist-chasers’ last album, and with only one original member, Graham Crabb.

Now joined by Pitchshifter drummer Jason Bowld and Grebo also-ran Mary Byker, any fears that New Noise… is going to be a washed-up parp of disillusion from men stranded far past their prime aren’t going to be alleviated by the opening track proper, Chaos & Mayhem, its listless, snotty vocals recalling Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine.

But New Noise… is the sound of a band rousing itself, refitting itself into old skin and finding the joints in perfect working order.

The stop-start fuel injected intro to Nosebleed Turbo TV bursting into a plethora of gloriously dishevelled, dancefloor-igniting beats and pulses and the gauntlet-throwing Oldskool Cool’s insouciant defiance all have the air of a gang throwing two fingers to the world, pissing in the wind and having a ball while they’re at it.

Having freelanced regularly for the Melody Maker and Kerrang!, and edited the extreme metal monthly, Terrorizer, for seven years, Jonathan is now the overseer of all the album and live reviews in Metal Hammer. Bemoans his obsolete superpower of being invisible to Routemaster bus conductors, finds men without sideburns slightly circumspect, and thinks songs that aren’t about Satan, swords or witches are a bit silly.