The Amorettes are back with a fist pumping, ferocious, fast and furious rock album. For their second outing, the girls have enlisted the help of Thunder guitarist Luke Morley as producer and co-writer for three tracks. Morley has stripped back and slickened up the girls' songs, making them less raw and more commercial. He's also beefed up their music by adding some killer harmonies and honed their sound so that it's more controlled. Lead singer and guitarist Gill Montgomery has also developed her songwriting, fluctuating between the fun, the introspective and the rocktastic.
Batter Up is the perfect example of this decisive shift, it's an explosive, well-developed album opener with a meaty riff that wouldn't look out of place on a Motorhead album. Let The Neighbours Call The Cops, co-written by Ricky Warick has a larger than life Suzi Quatro meets Girlschool vibe with plenty of attitudes. The song's sassy glam rock shows the expansion of the girls' sound. To be honest, at times on this album, it's hard to convince yourself that there is actually only three members of the band.
Even though the drums and percussion have been pulled back somewhat, there is still a very clear focus on rhythm with some jumping bass riffs and evenly spaced drum work. All the usual rock influences are evident on the heavier tracks like Roll, but the intricate and subtle harmonies temper the thrashing guitars and hark back to the girls' love of The Beach Boys and 60s girl groups. Crusader contains elements of the Wilson sisters with honest yet powerful vocals, soaring guitar and those key harmonies.
The humour is injected into the album again with Man Meat and Pervert Alert, the latter brings back that percussive element that runs through by adding a 'Micky' hand clap beat. It has the ring to a playground game to it, you're bound to be chanting it by the water cooler on Monday. Stealing Thunder has a rough rock sound which is embellished by Gill's biting vocal. One thing this album demonstrates is that the band are as at ease having a lark as they are being serious, but they've definitely landed on a sound that works for them while they are doing it.
If you've yet to discover The Amorettes, you can't go too far wrong with this album it's 37 minutes of white hot rock!
Groupie Rating 4/5