Manchester's finest return with an EP to sweep you off your feet!
Hey guys, you know Valentine’s Day was a good few months ago, right? Of all the adjectives one could throw at Manchester punk trio Aerial Salad, ‘romantic’ isn’t the one that first comes to mind, but you get the feeling that at least some of the five tracks on ‘Roi De L’Herbe‘ (their first release since last year’s superb ‘R.O.I.’ album) were written with that special someone in mind.
They hit the ground running with the straight-up punk rock blast of ‘My Girl’, which has to be one of the catchiest AND noisiest love songs we’ve heard in ages. The band sound as fired-up and restless as they ever have, with vocalist/guitarist Jamie howling away like some kind of Mancunian Cobain, and they continue in a similar vein on ‘Inject Your Blood’. It boasts the lyric “I’d inject your blood into mine, just to feel you close”, and, well…that doesn’t exactly bring to mind a casual friendship, does it?
Third track ‘King Of The Grass’ is built around a great cyclical riff, and it’s here where their self-description as a ‘Madchester punk’ band makes most sense, with a certain dance-worthy groove bubbling away underneath those barbed-wire guitars. Apparently inspired by bassist Mike’s gardening ‘day job’, it answers that most burning of questions; can punk rock and a horticulture fixation co-exist? Well, they certainly can here.
We’re back on more familiar punk rock lyrical territory for the somewhat grunge-flavoured (and all the better for it!) ‘Wires’. A righteous diatribe against our increasing dependence on AI, you can picture a packed venue going nuts to it as Jamie sounds like he’s trying to throttle his guitar towards the end. They then sign off with the two-minute sprint of ‘L.A.’, which pretty much encapsulates all that’s great about this band, and comes with the promise to “give you all my love tonight”. Ooh, you silver-tongued devils, you.
There’s plenty to love about ‘Roi De L’Herbe’. and at less than fifteen minutes long, it makes for a short, sharp and punchy snapshot of a band who really are on peak form right now. Better yet, they’re literally about to start a UK tour, and these songs should sound amazing live, so go along and let them steal your heart.
‘Roi De L’Herbe’ is released on June 27th via Venn Records – pre-order the vinyl HERE.
- My Girl
- Inject Your Blood
- King Of The Grass
- Wires
- L.A.
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I spend my days teaching English to foreign students, and my evenings attending as many gigs as possible. Raised mainly on a diet of 90s third-wave punk, my tastes have grown to include just about anything from trad ska to thrash metal. The Ramones are my musical gods.
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