Puscha - 'Steal Your Life Back' (Full On) Released 08/11/04

Brighton based Puscha’s debut album oozes with strangely familiar sounding angst-ridden and boisterous indie-rock tunes that are highly palatable, but fail to incite any much needed excitement. Indeed, the album’s main weakness is that when the band ‘rock out’ it’s all a bit banal. Which is a bit of a shame because in other areas ‘Steal Your Life Back’ has a lot of potential - not least Simon Rawlinson’s gritty vocals, which at times sound like an unlikely bastardisation of Tiny Ultrasound and James Skelly. Elsewhere, however, on the rocking ‘Life Honey’ he sounds like a pissed up Terry Christian doing a Liam Gallagher impression at his local boozer’s karaoke night – as you’ve probably guessed it’s not very pretty.

Having said this, it all starts off very promising. Buoyed by Charlatans-esque keyboards and angular guitars the opener ‘Smoking Dog’ is a confident and very captivating number. Similarly, armed with a killer bass line the title track is a pure visceral rush with a soaring chorus. ‘Sunday’ sees a more chilled and relaxed side of the band and although it doesn’t have the energy of earlier tracks it does show the band have an eye for a decent tune. But by the time you reach ‘Spooks’ which plays on the predictable quiet/LOUD! formula, ‘Steal Your Life Back’ starts to wear a bit thin. The hackneyed ‘Tightrope’ is just instantly forgettable. Luckily, the album is bracketed by very good tunes– the raucous final track ‘Maybe We Want To’ restores a bit of zest and vitality into proceedings.

Clocking in at just 33 minutes, ‘Steal Your Life Back’ is a short, vaguely entertaining, but extremely one-dimensional ride.