It has become something of a habit to quickly Google a band before review, for nothing else than if to avoid some embarrassing faux pas... C'mon, do you know anyone who LIKES to put their foot in it? What I'm getting at with this is that the aforementioned brief Internet trawl turned up some straggly vampiric emo kids and a remarkably pink-haired singer. Actually, that's not something I'm willing to vouch for, given both the frequency, and potential mutational ability, of the different hair dyes they subject their tortured scalps too. On top of that, when dealing with such stereotypes, a female voice is NO safe indication of gender.

MUSIC! Or I'll devolve this into a rant...

For a fantastic change, I didn't get at all what I expected. Immediately, and this is all that's relevant really, singer Danni Monroe sounds lyrically like an intelligent, yet self-described 'rebel all my life'. Or she's got serious anger issues and a thesaurus or something. Either way, it's easy to imagine her bottling some overenthusiastic fan. On the head!

Seriously speaking, lyrics and melody are complementary; both seem to revel in a brutal but memorable, ALMOST ingeniously rhythmic approach to music, interspersed with moments of epic, soaring vocals and some 'short but sweet' variety solos. Because there is a guitarist and presumably he needs attention too. And a piano, pianos are good; they really throw in a bit of that sophisticated, totally gothic and original thing. That's what they're for right? There was some Mozart guy once I think... but that's another story.

My only outright problem with this album is that the latter half gravitates a little TOO much towards the 'epic soaring' whereas I preferred the swingin' heavy stuff. 'Rise Up' and 'Fight' are simple, yet arguably as original as the whole 'inclusion of the piano thing'. In fact, returning to my earlier point, I'd go as far as to say, best brace you for this... that in general, 'epic soaring' is FILLER! Don't panic, everything's ok- calm, deep breathing. Just stop and think about it readers, would YOU buy a 'progressive' album? If the thought doesn't elicit at least a quiet hiss and thoughts of homicide within the very depths of your rock 'n' roll soul... then... you're probably not that welcome here.

Take heed, The Dirty Youth. Take heed.

http://www.thedirtyyouth.co.uk/