If you want an introduction to this album then take a look at the gossip columns of any music magazine over the past three months or so. The whole fracas surrounding The Von Bondies and their relationship with the rest of the Detroit scene makes it difficult to view their new album free from prejudice so I might as well declare bias here. I think Jason Stollsteimer seems like a bit of a wanker and he's got one of those faces that you just want to punch. On the other hand he's got a great voice and their debut album, "Lack Of Communication", despite running out of steam after the first few songs, promised great things for the future.

"No Regrets" opens things spectacularly, a stomping glam racket yelled at the top of Stollsteimer's ample lungs from some high place, maybe a tall building or a helicopter or somewhere. Yeah, it sounds a lot like "Lack Of Communication" but that would only be a problem if every song on the album sounded like it and even then it wouldn't be a problem. "Broken Man" follows it up energetically and with strong sense of purpose and "C'Mon C'Mon" is a good single slotting in predictably at track three (what is it about singles and track threes on albums?)

Then after that? Well, like its predecessor it runs out of steam and descends into a muddy maelstrom of big noise, crashing guitars, self-absorbed echoey vocals and no tunes. On "Crawl Through The Darkness" and "The Fever" the contrast between Carrie's pancake-flat non-voice and Stollsteimer's primal yowl makes for an interesting dynamic, especially when wrapped around tunes dangerously close to memorable but the utterly pointless "Mairead" is particularly lacking in virtue and the title track is crap. I feel guilty about slagging this off because from what I gather I'm at the back of a pretty long queue but despite about half an album's worth of decent songs this is just too much of a hollow, depthless ego-trip and there are just too many better albums coming out for it to be worth anyone's while. -Ian Martin, Feb.24.04

Pawnshoppe Heart