The Smoking Hearts - Pride of Nowhere Album Review

The Smoking Hearts, for those of you who are currently unaware of them, do not do subtlety. Pride of Nowhere is an album which punches you in the face, and continues to do so for the rest of the twenty nine and a half minutes it goes on for. But when it's over, you know you want to go back for another lashing.

Pride of Nowhere starts with a mid-paced feedback intro, serving as a calm before the storm. Then, following a minute of this, track two - Daddy's Little Disaster comes in swaggering rudely, beating the crap into your speakers and your ears. In a time where it's good to be reminded that punk is not about pretty American boys in eyeliner; that punk used to be dangerous and still can be.

Track three - Thrash B4 Gash - once more highlights The Smoking Hearts' total disrespect for decency. It's a loud blitzkrieg of a song with some great guitar solos.

The album carries on in this vain for the next hour. There's nothing cerebral about it - it's just loud punk rock. Like The Bronx and Amen on a pub crawl with The Stooges. It's an album full of highlights, but definite stand outs are the aforementioned Daddy's Little Disaster, the violent George Street Wrestling, and the album's closing one-two punch of Stab, Twist, Kill and Message in a Molotov. It's all short, but not so sweet; it doesn't outstay it's welcome but it uses you like a doormat.

Pride of Nowhere is an album that hits and just keeps hitting. I'm sure that this would be truly something to see live - most bands lose something between live and studio. But judging by this, you get the feeling that a Smoking Hearts gig would be a dangerous place to be.

But once you'd wiped up all the blood, you'd definitely do it all over again.


Ben Walton