Music > Album Reviews

Nai Harvest - Hairball

14/03/15

From Sheffield, Nai Harvest are yet another guitar-and-drums duo. More Drenge than White Stripes, sophomore effort Hairball is an album of fizzy, fuzzy, scuzzy, grungie indie-punk-pop.

Musically, this is pretty standard garage fare, with pounding drums from Lew Currie and Ben Thompson’s squealing, squally guitar. Thompson’s vocals are, however, unexpected, treated in a way that brings to mind the baggie/Madchester thing. This reminds me of the great but mostly forgotten Senseless Things.

Individually, songs like Spin, Melanie, Buttercups and the title-track - make that the whole every song on the album - are shoutalong, bouncey fun. The key word there is individually. As a whole, over ten songs, everything gets a bit formulaic, a bit samey, too one-dimensional. Each song, on its own, is great but as an album this is less than the sum of its parts.

Next time out, a bit of variety wouldn’t go amiss. In the meantime, I’ll definitely be listening to these songs again, just not all together, one after another.

7/10