Cracking Amy
Loved to Death EP

Of the three CDs the Editor gave me to review, Cracking Amy immediately caught my eye. One look at the band photo reassured me that I was not in store for a gentle meander through my Sunday afternoon.

So what are they like? Well, ‘Loved to Death’ starts with an instrumental tune ‘Intro of the Guitar Hero’, which begins with chants of ‘up the cracks’ and then it all kicks off.

The first thing to hit you is the sheer enthused, crazed pace of the track. It’s as if they intend on grabbing hold of you first off, handcuffing you to your stereo and saying ‘right Sonny Jim, you ain’t going anywhere’. It’s very reminiscent of the old Carter USM albums, which always had an intro of some description, which sets the CD up nicely.

Onto the title track, ‘Loved to Death’, which tells a tale of some nice chap ditching his girlfriends’ corpse. It’s nice to hear a song that’s so abstract you can’t help but listen to it, especially the chorus ‘psycho boyfriend’ – classic!

There’s something of early Offspring about their sound, back to their Smash days, not the later, more dubious power-pop affairs. They keep the pace up at a frenetic rate and don’t let up for a second.

‘Playing God’ again starts with a manic intro, but it’s not over the top The breaks are well timed, and they pull it off very well. I must say that at this stage you don’t really mind being handcuffed to your stereo, and start to wonder if the civil partnership schemes extend to electrical audio equipment.

It’s quite clear that Cracking Amy’s musical premise is to make as loud a noise as possible before being indistinguishable. You can hear each instrument, which is a great plus, as it could so easily have become a wall of sound, which meant not a great deal. Again the chorus of ‘Playing God’ has more than one hook, which just makes this tune stand out as well.

To finish off, ‘Superficial’ again is very much in the mid-nineties era of rock music, but it’s nothing but likeable. They have made three ( four counting the intro) songs which appear to be so fast, that it seems very little time was spent writing them. That is not the case in reality though, each song is well thought out and peaks and troughs at the right time.

There’s time for a quick guitar solo towards the end, before it bolts headlong into the finale. Short, sharp and sweet. As soon as it ends, you pick your broken body from the floor and press play again, muttering in a barely audibe croak; ‘up the cracks….’

Definitely one of the best bands I have reviewed this year.