Gallows

Riding the acclaim of their recent Orchestra Of Wolves album, ‘In The Belly Of A Shark’ is set continue Gallows’ pandemic success, capping it with a frightening air of British hostility.

Taking to the ears with a V8 engine of bass, it hurtles across the plains of Testosterone Valley at speeds far exceeding anything Johnny Cash ever mustered. It screams headlong toward a mountain of jealous introversion (the Shark), a dark and lonely place somewhere on the psyche’s dusty horizon (note: this isn’t a song about the actual innards of a shark).

At the helm of this incensed vehicle is the man-beast himself, singer/shouter Frank Carter. Charging down the shark, Carter screeches over blind rises of pounding drums, rounding corners paved with old-school punk and skidding through hairpins greased wth metal ferocity. Gased up on the blues-drenched funk riffs of Jet and The Films, and taking disorientating directions from Helmet and Grinderman, the peddle goes fully to the nose-bleeding metal with the help of some Sick Of It All and Ligthning Bolt frantic antics.

This abrasive steel-on-steel juggernaught is the best thing to come out of Watford since the Metropolitan fast train to Moorgate. Just be careful it doesn’t run you over.