Ladyhawk - 'Ladyhawk' (Jagjaguwar) Released 05/06/05

Somewhere, far away from the plastic personality-vacuums and super-sized TV screens of chain pubs and the soulless sheen of uber-trendy upmarket boozers, resides the imaginary perfect bar. There’s cheap drinks, good times and a peerless jukebox – and the band in residency is Ladyhawk. The album sleeve finds the four-piece enjoying a spot of fresh air in the woods, but the Vancouver (they must put something in the water – or beer – in that city, home also to the utterly brilliant Black Mountain and the up and coming country-punk troupe Blood Meridian) quartet is clearly more at home in smoky saloons. You don’t even need the hints offered by song titles such as ‘Drunk Eyes’, never mind an alcometer to detect that these ten tunes are so soaked in booze you’d be wise not to approach this platter with a lit match.

But dumb-ass barroom brawl boogie this most definitely is not. Ladyhawk’s stripped-down sound - two feedback-favouring guitars, plonking bass and thudding drums, everything seemingly recorded live with little or no interest in removing the odd glitch - has been described as the raucousness of the Replacements – famously fond of a drop – meets the tequila-drenched torment of Tonight’s The Night. Which is true enough when it comes to the opener ’48 Hours’, describe as it does the bleak point when the high spirits of a big night out turn sour when the protagonist is faced with a row of empty bottles and the same old shit as soon as the final fumes of the evening’s drinking subside.

Elsewhere, however, the most appropriate point of reference is another Neil Young album, ‘Zuma’, a blast of sizzling, rejuvenated racket that is fully matched in exhilarating high spirits, quality of songcraft and rare ability to carve gloriously sloppy funkiness from ragged and loose musicianship alike by the standouts, such as ‘The Dugout’, which comes complete with Young-esque outbreaks of gritty guitar workouts.

Of the other highlights, the raw upbeat stomp of ‘My Old Jacknife’ could almost be Kings of Leon sans high production values, whilst the furious assault of ‘Teenage Love Song’ is an electrifying shot of no-nonsense rock ‘n’ roll, with Duffy Driediger’s high-pitched wail doing its best to upstage the crunching cavalcade of high-octane riffage. The soulful moan of ‘Sad Eyes/Blue Eyes’, meanwhile, proves Ladyhawk’s capacity for moulding memorable melodies, and then there’s the spooky ‘Long ‘Til The Morning’, an eerie epic that could pass off as Songs/Ohia’s Jason Molina fronting My Morning Jacket around the time of their debut ‘The Tennessee Fire’.

Which is quite fitting, as it’s that lo-fi 1999 album that ‘Ladyhawk’ most resembles – an immensely enjoyable first outing from a hugely promising band who should be really blowing them away with intoxicating sounds in a year or two, once they’ve had a chance to ferment their style to perfection. Until then, this is the perfect accompaniment for a drink or four.