The Dirtbombs - We Have You Surrounded Album Review

The Dirtbombs
We Have You Surrounded
In The Red
Album Review

Garage rock is full of bands who turn up their fun dials, sometimes at the expense of their audience. The Dirtbombs started with two drummers, two bass players and singer/ guitarist Mick Collins, and threw heart and soul into a youthful mess of fuzzed-up punk, glam rock, soul, R&B and dirty-sounding garage. Like albums by the Mooney Suzuki, Little Killers, and maybe even the White Stripes, there is a scuzzy delight in the simple fact that someone is throwing pure great sound onto disc, and worrying a lot less about style or substance.

We Have You Surrounded is the most experimental of the band's albums - a cover of Sparks' Sherlock Holmes makes do with only drums and an occasional bass note, Leopardman at C&A is a Nick Cave-like rant, I Hear Sirens sounds like some 70s punk classic, and Race To The Bottom becomes an 8 minute assault of seemingly random noise. The Dirtbombs aren't a band to be played quietly; they're a band to be experienced live, and definitely a band to keep away from your grandparents.

3.5/5 

Mike Rea