With an album recorded pre-Covid, Leeds trio Nervous Twitch return with a fourth album - this time self-titled and released on the Reckless Yes Records label. It's also very smartly dressed in a striking black and white cover design and, for vinylmaniacs comes on a cream coloured disc that will look great on your turntable. Musically, all the staple Nervous Twitch attributes are there; the 60s girl group influenced vocals, the punky / garage / power-pop sounds, the quicksilver tunes - 12 tracks in 32 minutes - and the fun, energetic vibe that their tunes bring to their recordings and live shows, all embellished with some imaginative touches used to bring different emphasis to the songs - for example the synth lines and jaunty guitar on 'Keeping Faith In Something' or the middle eight of 'Don't Blame Me' rising up the scales to lift the song onto another plane.
All told, it's a deceptively sophisticated sound built on the foundations of Ashley Goodall's spot-on, down the line drumming and Erin Rumble's clean, unfussy bass lines, which allows Jay Churchley's guitar to weave in and out of the songs, either with clean, snappy, single string guitar lines or a fuzzy effects driven sound (as on opener 'Count Your Blessings') and Erin's (often) double-tracked vocals to sit atop the pop gems spread about the album. And boy, are there catchy choruses! Try singles 'Tongue-Tied' and 'Alright Lads' (although how they decide which tracks will be a single, as any of the twelve are potential ones!) or 'Not Everyone's Out To Get Me' and 'Boredom And Dissatisfaction'. And if this doesn't sound 'noisy' enough for you, try the last three tracks where the pop is largely dispensed with and replaced with the punk / garage rock influences on 'She's In A Bad Way' (with it's echoes of a well known Only Ones classic), 'The Way That I Feel' and 'Fickle You'. All in all, the album is a joyous (musically, if not totally lyrically) half-hour or so that should help you through the cold of February and much, much further into the rest of the year.
'Nervous Twitch' is available on all the major digital sites and from Reckless Yes Records.
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