Alloy Mental- 'We Have Control' (Skint) Released 25/06/07

After releasing the Dave Clarke album, Skint have signed another techno dude here, Phil Kieran and his Alloy Mental band. The first song shares the band's name and it demands your attention. Singer Martin Corrigan gives an ominous, Orwellian double-speak warning that "This word's changing, there's a blind-side meaning". It's similar language to Arcade Fire's album opener 'Black Mirror'... "All words will lose their meaning". There's another reminder of the connection as someone shouts "Fire, fire" in the background of 'Alloy Mental'. The drum-beats seemingly switch from being machine to human-operated, which moves feet like there's a fire in the building, but the feet dance, not run.

'Stick It In Your neck' follows in the rich vein of singing about neck-knifing. First, Paul Banks of Interpol mentioned "Stabbing yourself in the neck" on 'Obstacle 1', then The Libertines named their debut 'Up the Bracket', slang for a knife in the neck. Martin Corrigan's weapon of choice is a switch-blade, the cheeky rogue. He's got a primal punk snarl, alongside a post-punk synth-line, here. The song is good enough to inspire outbreaks of air-stabbing. It's just as safe as air-guitar. The title-track features what sounds like a panel beater as percussionist and a whooshing noise that suggests something sharp is displacing air. It could be a samurai providing 'vibes' on this malevolent techno that would go down a storm on dance floors like Voodoo or Atomic Jam.

That the word 'alloy' is in the band's name hints at the healthy genre-bastardisation on show here. 'We Have Control' features successful marriages between rock and techno, but also calmer moments, like the serene 'Seconds'. This has echoes of another band, Lo-Fidelity All-stars, whose debut recordings came out a decade ago on the same label. Alloy Mental have a similar, refreshingly child-like “Why can't we do that?” attitude to music.