Since getting back together in 2020, two decades after briefly making a splash, Grand Theft Audio sound revitalised even though their core members are now just two – frontman Jay Butler and erstwhile Wildhearts drummer Ritch Battersby.
There are strong echoes of 90s-style dance-rock here, but who cares when it’s so expertly turned.
Scrub Up is an air- punching opener blending a dancey verse with a booming rock chorus, like Jesus Jones embracing the devil’s music, while Bad Instinct has a cracking bass line thrumming through it as if EMF have been held hostage by the hard rock liberation front. Bury The Day, meanwhile, channels the punky intensity of Battersby’s other band.
It’s all shot through with a distinct world-view, too, as on the sardonic Gods Of Rock and The Load’s angry polemic against an uncaring modern world, where the advice is ‘better not be poor and don’t get old’.
