Loom - Loom

It's been a long time coming but we finally have the debut album from Leamington Spa’s Loom.  Five years after forming and two years since the release of their last release this is a compilation of many of their moments over those five years and a few more angry moments, and at times this is a very angry album indeed.  With a sound that is sometimes reminiscent of grunge and more specifically Nirvana in angry mode, this is a full on experience of rock with attitude.  Refreshingly so.

Hate is a song that sounds just as angry as the title portends.  It relies heavily on the ‘made for anger’ voice of Loom frontman Tarik Badwan.  With a chiming guitar and a voice that’s seethes this sounds like The Pixies when they cared.  Bleed on Me uses effects pedals, feedback and a sound that probably hasn’t been heard since Nirvana’a Bleach.  Nailbender channels The Stooges with its swaggering approach to rock that sounds at first listen as dumb as a bag of hammers but actually is probably sharper than a drawer of knives.  Other moments on this album add up to the whole of the album being a head down, rush through Rock's more memorable influences, at a pace that almost makes your nose bleed with the sheer bloody joy of a band that sounds like they mean every single note and word you hear.

The only problem with Loom is that they don’t sound fresh, they sound like the sum of their collective influences (their cover of Seasick by Jesus Lizard is faithful to the original).  That sometimes distracts from an album that delivers so much energy.  It also distracts from a band that actually sounds much fresher than the majority of rock bands coming from the UK right now.  Let’s hope that next time they take a little less time and sound a little bit more original.  Because the feeling here is if they trust themselves they could be very successful indeed.