The Smoking Hearts - Pride of Nowhere LP
Reviewed by Martin Stapleton
It's been a long and sometimes difficult journey, but it looks like all the legwork and diesel they have spent trying to get a foothold on the musical ladder has finally paid off for Shefford five piece The Smoking Hearts. Fulfilling their undoubted potential has arrived in this, their debut album "Pride of Nowhere". Trying to encapsulate their raw and raucous live shows onto a piece of plastic could have been tricky, but in the excellent and very capable hands of producer Nick Mailing, their vital energy is supremely captured.
Dynamically charged, this album, although containing thirteen songs, actually clocks in at just under thirty minutes. The hardcore pace throughout is relentless and never flags. Lethal is a vocalist who seemingly drinks paint stripper and has probably been force fed razorwire for the whole of his twenty plus years. His ravaged bark is prominent throughout. Easing in with the ever so slightly 'glam rock' openings of "Pride of Nowhere", we then hurtle head first into a perpetual barrage of wondrous hardcore noise. This begins with "Daddy's Little Disaster". They then shout out collectively "You can't say no" to "ThrashB4gash". It finishes with a thunderous guitar climax. With so much tacky and formulaic music around courtesy of television talent shows who prefer their musicians to have visual style over musical content, The Smoking Hearts represent the old skool. Back to basics and serving a tough apprenticeship in their battered old van, they have a real love for their music.
The anthemic "Shred and Destroy" is heart pumping and body moving. The incendiary workings of "George Street Wrestling" contains much hypnotic guitar. These 'noisemongers' reach a zenith with "Thundersludge". It's my favourite track and sums up perfectly their status as a true 'sweaty balls' rock 'n' roll band. The primitive vibrancy of "Blood Money" with its constant riff kicks up an unholy storm. Guitar arpeggios scatter and cascade around "Stabtwistkill" and "Message in a Molotov" like nailbombs.
"Pride of Nowhere" is an inspirational album good enough to make any aspiring youngster take up any of the rudimentary components of a rock 'n' roll band. Although I have been critical of The Smoking Hearts in the past, this album (the best punk album by a local band since "Go to Hell" by Sick On The Bus nearly a decade ago) is excellent. Fresh and explosive, it has raised the bar for all the other bands in the area.