After much record company wrangling and the band being without a deal for the good part of a year, Backyard Babies' new album is finally upon us. A departure from the sleazy punk 'n' roll of
'Total 13", "Making Enemies Is Good" focuses much more on pure songwriting, and doesn't disappoint.
Opener 'I Love To Roll' doesn't really sound like a real song as such, but as an introduction and statement of intent it works perfectly. First track proper 'Payback', with its swaggering riff and classically rock n' roll lyrics, is pure Babies trash, the sort of stomp they've always been so good at, with Dregen's guitar work simply oozing attitude. However it's the co-written songs which demand most attention. 'Brand New Hate' and 'Painkiller' (co-written with
Ginger of The
Wildhearts, and Dogs D'Amour's Tyla respectively) are classy little numbers, the former sounding unsurprising like the Babies jamming with
The Wildhearts, and the latter an owner of one of the most beautiful choruses you'll hear all year.
The album does however sink somewhat around the mid-part, with tracks 'Ex-Files' and 'The Clash' in particular having an accurate aim, but still firing blanks. The simply awful 'Too Tough To Make Some Friends' is the only song however that simply should not be on the album. Why this made it and 'Is It Still Alright To Smile?' didn't is beyond me. Although 'Heaven 2.9' is simply fantastic, bringing to mind classic Hanoi Rocks and with more than a whiff of
Yo-Yo's influence about it as well.
Each Babies album has seen a dramatic improvement in the songwriting, and with this current rate - give the band another two albums and we should have the all time classic they've been promising. This however, is just another very good rock 'n' roll album.
Joe
Dimmer
Sorry but I just couldn't
let this one go - 'Ex-Files' is my favourite track from 'Making Enemies
Is Good' and I reckon 'The Clash' is fantastic too. However 'Is It Still
Alright To Smile' does piss on 'Too Tough To Make Some Friends' from a
great height. I am personally of the opinion that this is the strongest
album we have seen from Camp Backyard to date and deserves much greater
credit than simply 'Just another very good rock 'n' roll album, but then
that's just another opinion... Ed
James
Tomlinson |
