You have to wonder what decade we are in sometimes, when you have bands like Wolfmother smashing the grammys, QOTSA operating in a haze of weed smoke and the memories of the seventies and, latterly, The Hyena’s operating in a strange middle ground between David Bowie and the Stooges.
Certainly on the single ‘filthy electricity’, singer Paul Marks has a dirty Bowie croon – Bowie if he’d spent too much time watching porn movies, you might imagine – while his band play dirty rock ‘n’ roll of the type rarely kicked out these days and even more rarely done well. The press release cites, rather unfortunately, the Strokes. That’s never a good idea because despite the fact that the Strokes sold tons, they have never actually been any good while The hyenas (who are more likely, regrettably, to languish in relative obscurity) are very good thanks to their unquenchable rock ‘n’ roll spirit and the fact that Paul marks really does have an excellent voice.
So that you have here is a two track single which is largely very good indeed although the production is awfully dry, and the b side (‘you should not operate machinery’) is almost better than the a side – a throwback to the days when bands actually went to the trouble of recording b sides rather than just lumping live tracks and remixes on the CD. True the lyrics are, perhaps, on the monotonous side, but then that is very much the nature of the rock beast and I have no doubt that when standing in a darkened basement, overpriced beer in hand and with the lights flashing in time to the overloaded amps that won’t matter anyway – and as such music is ALWAYS best experienced live, that’s undoubtedly where you should catch the Hyenas- leather clad, sweat drenched and ready to explode.
With only two tracks to play with it’s kind of hard to say where the hyena’s may go, but as a starting point it’s strong, gritty rock ‘n’ roll sung by a singer with guts and a great voice. Classic rock fans and those who like their music played fast and loose will go a bundle on this and I’d certainly recommend checking them out live. A great start and I will look forward to the album all the more having heard these two, cool tracks.
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