Mother Vulture

Mother Knows Best

Turbo-charged debut from livewire British blues-punks.

Capturing in the studio the energy of an electrifying live show has stymied so many new bands, but West Country fireballs Mother Vulture have managed to bottle their wild-eyed vitality on debut album Mother Knows Best. That rotten title does them no favours, though. Its 12 tracks rush by in a blur of noise and nailed-on groove, while charisma-bomb frontman Georgi Valentine’s upperregister screech can strip paint and dislodge earwax at 50 feet.

It’s blues, it’s punk, it’s alt.rock, but it never feels like they’re trying to stick the head of a horse on the body of a camel. Fame Or Shame and the bonehead beat of Big Bad crackle like a 10,000-volt charge running through an uninsulated cable. Yet while their desire to batter anyone who comes within 10 feet into submission is admirable, blockbusting choruses are in shorter supply – it’s perfect club fodder, but there’s nothing here that will get an arena crowd going. Solve that problem and then we’re talking.