Youth of the 90s stand by, because you’re going to find the siren call of Puppy’s second album pretty difficult to resist.
The London trio are shameless with their alt.rock touch-points, from the flint-edged melodicism of The Kiss that shadows Siamese Dream-era Smashing Pumpkins, to My Offer harvesting subtle motifs from Nirvana’s Love Buzz, to the queasy minor-key darkness of Spellbound, a hymn to Alice In Chains.
Swimming in the warm and dreamy fuzz tone of the grunge years, punctuated with howling solos and uncompromising thrash outbursts, Pure Evil is a lovingly crafted tribute in places, maybe, but it’s not a pastiche.
The songwriting is too accomplished for that – this is their own, millennial take on a genre they love, giving it fresh, vital new life for a whole new generation. In an era when so many outside of the scene are proclaiming rock to be dead, Puppy are proof that it is alive, well and sitting up begging for your attention.
