Italian trio The Clamps play a slightly stoner influenced brand of blazing trashy punk ‘n’ metal garage rock ‘n’ roll. Cranking up with the opening instrumental ‘Barracuda’, an exercise in shouting without words “we really know what a riff is!”, they then barrel their way via a piano into ‘Liar’. This is just a glorious belch of Nashville Pussy style vocals, Motorhead heads up riffage and bloody great Hellacopters guitar runs. Ah it’s nice to be back in ‘dance like a loon’ territory. It’s just get up, drink your beer, bang your head and pick which wall to bounce off first music. ‘Must Destroy’ comes in a hard third, for some reason reminding me of old one-shot favourites of mine Boogieman with its heavy, dirty blues stoner vibe. Even more so when the just superb sweat soaked ‘Get Ready’ dances out in lead runs and urgent vocals.

The best thing about this kind of music is its success is easy to pin down: High energy, dance until you drop songs. Songs. If it won’t light the party’s blue touch paper it doesn’t go in. The Clamps have a firm grip on this idea and deliver just shy of a dozen songs of cracking punk ‘n’ metal rock ‘n’ roll. Slightly low end riffs give a lead heavy foundation and a solid base for the fast ‘n’ fluid guitar runs to kick and punch their way across.

Just picking personal highlights ‘Nacho Vidal’ has a biker feel to it, a superb metal riff driving on. Kind of Speedwolf in its flick of the wrist speed and intensity. As ever there is stage-worrying bounce to it too, a rush of blood to the head energy which is so infectious there is no vaccine. ‘Dirty Little Girl’ makes great use of barely audible backing vocals, which would be cool to hear a little more often maybe. ‘One More Time’ has a great guitar sound and a downtuned snarl which sounds like Nashville Pussy in a real mean mood, just louder.

It doesn’t outstay its welcome, it just leaves you with ringing ears, a nervous twitch, a big dirty grin and an odd stain on the carpet. Nothing more to say other than it’s a helluva party.

(8/10 Gizmo)

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