TWANG - Love It When I Feel Like This Review

To paraphrase Bill Shankly - a true working class hero you suspect The Twang would thoroughly approve of - pop isn't a matter of life and death: it's far more important than that. The problem with this - for the real, passionate, foaming at the mouth pop fan - is that it's too easy to lose perspective. A band is either the best of all time or the worst band ever, geniuses or fools. In pub rows across the country, the Arctic Monkeys' first album is either the best debut ever or the most overrated....full text Here we go again. Already buzzed up with urban legends about million-pound bidding wars and samurai sword-swinging showdowns, Birmingham rowdies The Twang are primed for one of those classic love-hate relationships between stylised working-class laddery and a half-titillated, half-appalled media.

Their freaky-dancing, slang-heavy, wide-trousered jabber fits comfortably into an urchin-rock lineage stretching from Happy Mondays and Flowered Up to Oasis, The Streets and Goldie Lookin’ Chain. With a dash of Bash Street Kids for good measure....full text Imagine Oasis robbed of their life-affirming anthems and stuck only with their swagger; the Happy Mondays stripped of Shaun Ryder's poetry and reduced to their baggy beats - and you're left with the Twang. Fuelled by beer, consumed by bravado and regret, the Brummie five-piece and their sluggish, chugging guitar tunes are woefully uninspired. Their lack of insight and intellect means that instead of celebrating working-class culture, the Twang stab it in the back. "I bet to find your cock your missus has to lay you on your back," sings Phil Etheridge in The Neighbour with typical subtlety, while the romance of Two Lovers is tainted by misogyny. And the hedonism of Loosely Dancing is as flat as last night's lager....full text