Moderate Rock

Be very very quiet, we’re hunting ‘Animals’. If you listen carefully there’s a chance you can still hear the distant, discordant echo of Red Heat’s first two EPs but this is a different beast altogether. Opener ‘Liquor Store’ is a confrontational, coiled spring of a song. A wall of noise thins just enough to reveal the first spiky, lurching riff which eventually gives way to insistent percussion and sparkling guitars before a caterwauling finish. And there’s shrieking feedback, wailing sirens and Brandon Schlia’s static-drenched vocals in there too. It might even be an uncomfortable listen if the New York trio didn’t have a killer grasp of melody to temper the maelstrom. ‘Avatar-Andre’ could be Weezer at their weirdest and most catchy, ‘Wild Violent’ puts a brain-burrowing hook on repeat until it falls apart and album highlight ‘Bern’ is, whisper it, a sweet, clever and memorable rock song. Red Heat aren’t quite Fugazi, not yet, but ‘Animals’ is a livewire mix of sparse riffing, off-kilter melody, bristling post-punk, dark pop and political and social discontent. Chase it down.