1. I TOOK OUT A LOAN 0:26 Watch out HSBC! For today's APR-friendly rockers are BRMC, back for album number 4, and by the skronky, fuzzy, dirty bassline opening proceedings - imagine Love Spreads by the Stone Roses on crack cocaine - it's back to the nasty fuzz of their first album, Love Burns, not the restrained folk of last album Howl. "I took out a loan on my empty heartbeat/I took out a loan from my patient soul", Peter Hayes sneers, a less romantic financial transaction than Robert Johnson's with the devil at the crossroads, sure, but hopefully he gets decent terms and conditions.
2. BERLIN 1.37 Ah, that old rock chestnut - the bleak, walled city of Lou Reed and David Bowie's '70s dreams. This sets a heavy Stooges-style bass-and-drum backing - and a tune that reminds me of Rocking All Over The World by Status Quo, oddly enough - against some mumbling about being fooled by a lover and fooled by the city. The chorus goes, "Suicide's easy/What happened to the revolution?" A non-sequitur, surely?
3. WEAPON OF CHOICE 2.45 No clue what they're on about here, and, no, it's not a Fatboy Slim cover (what a pity). Instead, BRMC nick the riff from Depeche Mode's Personal Jesus and wail about "wasting it". So rock that you can smell its leathers, its hair-grease, and the musky fug of testosterone. Glade Plug-in anyone?
4. WINDOWS 1.05 At last!A resonant, descending piano line and a psychedelic, Beatles-style paean to Bill Gates' operating system!
3.55 "So how's it going to feel/When you don't know what's real?" Sorry, Bill, not exactly a vote for Microsoft, then - more a punt for Noel Gallagher's pocketbook of lyrical vaguery. At least the tune's pleasant, slouching along like John Lennon after a good bed-in.
5. COLD WIND 2.27 But, God, this one's a murky dirge, Hayes delivering lyrics like a stumbling drunk - "I've been waiting for the right time just to begin" (begin, what? Boring my trousers off?) - imagine Kings Of Leon after three days on the bourbon. Listen, Rebels - you work when your foot's on the gas and there's fire in your loins!
4.01 OK, so this is slightly redeemed at song-end by some weird gospelly harmonies. But the damage is done.
6. NOT WHAT YOU WANTED 3.04 A little better - this one's like an averagely-interesting Oasis B-side, a few lovely twists and turns moving along the melody. Still, not enough vim and hardly any vigour. Next!
7. 666 CONDUCER 0.34 "She's 17, she's got everything she needs to lose." What, you mean her virginity? Oh my! Rip up the rock cliche handbook - everything else is a footnote!
3.02 "You're a 666 conducer/How do you do the things you do, sir?" Come again? Hayes sounds like a post-coital middle-aged Beavis or Butthead riffing at pub karaoke. Grim.
8. ALL YOU DO IS TALK 0.16 But hey, this is nice - a bold, guitar drone, like the beginning of New Order's Your Silent Face on magic mushrooms or a choice slice of My Bloody Valentine. Hoorah - the return of shoegazing continues apace!
1.08 Until Hayes ruins it with a sneery vocal. Cheers.
3.12 Actually, I'm being cruel - a percussive bassline and drums have kicked in, and the song works a treat. Even though its lyrics ("Help yourself, don't speak/Help yourself, don't say a word at all") remind me of Ronan Keating's When You Say Nothing At All, amusingly enough. But a result - a track I really like. Have a biscuit, Rebels.
9. LIEN ON YOUR DREAMS 2.15 And it was going so well. This is a dull trudge-along, the tedium interrupted momentarily here by a half-decent guitar solo.
3.44 And some Screamedelica-era Primal Scream harmonies and guitar chugs.Still, very disappointing.
10. NEED SOME AIR 0.15 But hello, this is good - a four-note bass figure and a nasty effects pedal - an intro that's part Eisturzende Neubaten, part Marilyn Manson and part Jesus And Mary Chain. And it works!
0.57 Wow! Is that the fastest, filthiest guitar playing ever? Goodness, I'm slightly flushed. Is it possible to fancy a song?
4.04 A sudden stop - BAM! - and we're done. I'm smoking a metaphorical cigarette - darling, that was wonderful. Did you put something in my drink?
11. KILLING THE LIGHT 2.01 Five tracks ago, I would have thought this sludgy, but there's a charm to it now, especially in Hayes's falsetto vocal, which reminds me of bands I loved in my kohl-lined late teens like Strangelove and Subcircus. Goodness, I'm still blushing. Best I have a lie down.
12. AMERICAN X 1.40 But not yet. Here's guitars from the Boy and War days of early U2, a bassline from Depeche Mode's top drawer, lyrics about warrior states and death being romantic, and a title that screams "I'm both topical and epic". And this song's length, iTunes tells me, is 9:11. Woah, dude!
4.51 Just over half-way now (she says, sounding like a mum on a car trip - and no, you can't wee yet) and BRMC have given up on lyrics. "Wurrghh, all your staaaar, wurrghh, aargh", Hayes seems to holler. I see. Bono still hovers, but I'm not sure if he's pleased.
6.19 Some horrible amateurish guitar wibbling here. Call The Edge!
7.48 Those shoegazing guitar layers are back, as if Slowdive had wandered in on a post-punk after-party. And it's great - a career direction here, lads!
9.11 But then, just like that, it's done - no great denouement, just a slump to the end. Decidedly not worth the trek. But, yes, you can wee now.
13. AM I ONLY 2.01 The folkier textures of the last album revisited briefly for this penultimate track. This could be The Verve, minus the look-at-me smuggery.
THE LIKES OF YOU 0.57 And we finish with this strange UK bonus track, quite different to everything else we've heard given the metallic tribal drums, scary sound effects, a bassline that screams late-'90s techno (think Leftfield's Afrika Shox) and how it sounds like it was recorded in a cave.
1.16 Now it sounds like an angry elephant's wandered in. Weird.
5.13 And we finish on a cloud of quiet oohs and a shuffling beat. And I'm profoundly confused.
IN CONCLUSION
A mixed bag from the Rebels, then - their dirty rock often getting sludgy and grubby, although in moments of strength, they become fabulously filthy, like Muse's slutty older brothers. Less whining next time, please, and more drony shoegazing guitars - although don't peer woefully at your plimsolls - instead, gaze romantically at those sturdy, rocking boots.
