Billy No Mates - ‘We Are Legion’ (10 Past 12)Released 04/04/05

 

 

So to the obvious question, what does Duncan have in common with rock god Dave Grohl? Well like Grohl with the first Foo Fighters album, Duncan sang and played every instrument on this album. Whether you call it being a control freak or just too tight to pay session musicians I don’t know but the end product is solid.   

 

‘Bones’, is the first song on the album, it’s catchy, melodic and has already had airplay on Radio One’s The Lock Up. There are some excellent tracks on this album, ‘Memories Come, Memories Go’ opens with a great dirty guitar lick and then launches into upbeat pop punk. The American sounding ‘Look At You’ and ‘Seagulls’ are very radio friendly as are the nicely paced ‘Frijweg’ and the infectious ‘Slaptop’.

 

‘More To Come’ has a good rock guitar opening and ‘Spaceman’ is a bubbly, quintessentially British punk song. Slower tracks; ‘Bittersweet’, ‘Bedevere’ and ‘Fade’ don’t work as well as the upbeat ones and I didn’t warm to the angry ‘What’s Wrong With That?’ as much as some of them.

 

It’s inevitable that it sounds like Snuff’s brand of melodic punk but it’s different enough to count. As well as helping to shift copies of Snuff’s back-catalogue, this album stands out on its own. So look out for Billy No Mates in the shops, it’s the one with a fish-head man with Edward Sissorhand like claws on the front!