It’s rare when a new group emerges that’s so finely honed, so perfectly polished, and so outrageously talented that they already seem like the finished article and you have to double-check they haven’t actually been around for 20 years.
With the instantaneous appeal of AC/DC and the towering, multi-lingual prowess of Rainbow at their Live In Munich peak, Scorpion Child are nothing less than a heavy-riffing behemoth that takes the current glut of guitar-slinging retro-copyists and punches them through the pavement.
Emerging from the primordial goop of the Austin, Texas psych-rock scene, their nine-track opening salvo is ferocious, irresistible and utterly magnetic. Think Wolfmother but cooler, or Soundgarden if they loved their U.F.O. Polygon Of Eyes is a venue-wide shout-along waiting to happen, Salvation Slave a doe-eyed ballad that gets kicked in the teeth by the straightahead bombast of follow-up Liquor.
Far from the self-aware, painfully predictable sounds currently getting signed by fashion-conscious labels with reckless abandon, Scorpion Child are the real deal, and this debut is love at first listen. Get involved.
