One of the more interesting bands to emerge this year is the Distillers. With a raucous Australian leading from the front in founder Brody Dalle, this punk rock band have just released their third album, and their best.

A few weeks back, the band played live on Jools Holland’s Later TV show and caused quite a stir. It was, to say the least, a lively performance featuring the opening song, and first single release from the new album. Drain The Blood is impressive with its strong melody, and passionate guitar rock vibe. Listening to the track, you’d think that lead lady Dalle was a man. It’s a deep and expressive voice fronting a band that believes in giving guitars a hangar full of air to practice their black art. It’s a very strong opener that is followed by another crashing song in Dismantle Me. After this strong introduction I’m left with the thought that the band make the Darkness look like a fragile pop group. The relentless pace and doomed ambience continues with Die On A Rope and soaring chorus lines with nanoseconds of silence before the band rushes back in full throttle.

The Gallow Is God slows to dark, pensive pace and resembles something by Nirvana. The band has a strong sense of melody and this good song is no exception. Hall Of Mirrors springs an acoustic and quite beautiful surprise although heavy rock choruses are never too far away. It works really well in a song with of quite epic scale. It’s the highlight of this very good album. Lyrically, the band pretty well mouth what they feel, exemplified by the closing endless heavily improvised instrumental rant, For Tonight You Are Only Here To Know: “I would sink here for you, Just tonight I would slum here for you, Just tonight I would die where I am…”

CORAL FANG is up there with the best punk records released in 2003 and is good enough to make me want to see the band perform live, and that can’t be a bad thing… Definitely not for the faint-hearted and strongly recommended.

4/5