Like the wooden doll who thought he was a real boy, Imperial Vipers latest release 'Jewells' is a little confused. With stadium rock riffs and a snarling punk vocal, you don't really know where the Dunstable five piece wanted this, their third sinlge, to go.
You would assume the one place it wouldn't end up is a Ska version of the first verse, but it does. More surprising still is that it works, and it pulls 'Jewells' up out of the pits of mundane imitation rock, and for a moment you think that confused wooden doll could be a real boy after all, hell he could be the love child of Slash, Lydon or even Roddy Radiation. Regrettably the B side, 'Scars Alone' lacks the experimentation and urgency of 'Jewells' and slumps into dad rock territory, like AC/DC on a lazy day, and it all feels, well, a bit wooden, which is a pitty. That said, if the A side is anything to go by, the forthcoming album 'Searching: Falling: Silence' could be worth a look.
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