Gentleman's Soiree

This was a limited edition 7" released on EXP Records. It kicks in with squealing guitars and you think, 'Christ, this is hard-hitting.' Then it goes a step further, and REALLY blows your head off! Bassist Damo uses his guitar as another instrument, not just to add low end frequencies to the other guitar. "Whaddya say to another drink?" Yes please, my good man. "I feel fantastico." And I thought the bloke was just weird when they did that live. Silver Boots sounds like it could be a Jolt cover. It's not, of course, and it's filled with the same raw, punchy dynamics that exist in all of Groop Dogdrill's creations.

Gracelands

Again on EXP, Gracelands is kicked off by a big, fat, spiky bass riff upon which you would not care to be impaled. Well, less so than upon anything else. It's an angry song; not thrashy, but ANGRY. And frustrated. And, quite possibly, so on. Spoiler has me imagining a great big huge enormous canyon with vultures circling in the sky. Fanciful? You bet. Why d'you have to spoil it all? Indeed. Mixes a gentle plod with a ball-burstingly loud chorus, and very good for annoying the Germans who live upstairs... a lovely echoey harpsichord intro turns into Eyelash Trauma - Send No Flowers stuffed into a food mixer and thrown around at high speed (ie. sounds nothing like them). Quite what the title means I'm not sure - the only eyelash trauma I suffer from is forgetting to trim them and it can get hard to see. An acquired taste, but once you've acquired it, it tastes nice.

Lovely Skin

Lovely Skin is a slice of the sleazy, bryl-creamed rock'n'roll baseball battery that is Groop Dogdrill, and the band's first release on Beggars Banquet. You get the impression from the stubbornly solid guitar chuggery and the hard, somewhat flat, drumming, that this is not a band to mess with (let alone offer them trifle). You won't get intellectual stimulation, but you will get attitude. Lots of attitude. Let your ears enjoy a battering for once. Rockabilly Workout is a fitting B-side, but Shrub... is, to my ears at least, truly excellent. Could easily have been the A-side.

Oily Rag

This hasn't been released as a single, and is unlikely to be, yet there's every reason to believe that it'd be a success if it were. It will, however, definitely appear on the forthcoming album. This is high octane, dirt-fuelled rock 'n' roll at its sleaziest... and it has the most insistent chorus you'll ever hear!