Top rock testifiers THE NEEDLES have been ripping up the UK’S smaller stages and being invoiced by hospitals up and down the land for running repairs for the best part of two years now. W&H have tipped them for great things time and again, but now their long-awaited debut album “In Search Of The Needles” finally arrives in our lap, can it possibly live up to the fizzing shag-grenade excitement of their string of seethingly fine EPS?
Well, the answer, after repeated assaults from this exuberant and tune-heavy behemoth is a resounding YES! OF COURSE IT BLOODY WELL CAN!! At a just-right 34 minutes, “In Search Of The Needles” is a classic punk-pop debut album, mainlining on irrepressible energy and lobbing choruses around like kids with a box full of rubber snakes.
The brace of recent singles give you some idea of what to expect. The pummelling “Under The City”, melancholic “Summer Girls” and iconic “Dianne” are all revisited here. This latter is sure to be a live favourite for time immemoriam thanks to its’ introductory verse (“From Kurt Cobain through to Jack White, I screamed you name out every night”), rites-of-passage storyline and bruising chorus. Its’ fast’n’frantic B-side gem “Delivery Day” also makes the cut a second time, but the great news is that The Needles have many more where these come from in reserve.
Because really it’s more of a case of what COULDN’T be a single here. The wobbly synth intro to opener “Let You Down” is something of a red herring, because within 45 seconds we’re straight into the first of many synapse-snapping choruses and crunching ramalama of the highest order. Indeed, it’s difficult to tell whether this is catchier than the piledriving Nirvana riffage and sweet harmonies of “Girl I used To Know”, the economic cut’n’thrust of “Dead Or Alive” or the demolition derby anthemic power of “Up Against The Wall.”
Naturally, it helps that Aberdeen’s finest play with an understanding that suggests they were born joined at the hip. Drummer John Wolfe smashes away with Paul Cook-style accuracy, bassist Paul Curtiss rumbles and growls like a junior JJ Burnel, Richey Wolfe’s keyboards are more prominent than on the EPS and this is no bad thing because he switches fluently from sci-fi synth through pumping piano and on to cheesy Steve Nieve-style organ and speccy frontman Dave Dixon’s young Costello shtick and mean Telecaster scraping is setting him nicely apart from the crowd of skinny young pretenders who are unable to remember a world prior to The Libertines. Besides, this dexterity ensures The Needles succeed when they put their trademark raunch aside for a moment and treat us to slower, but no less infectious slices of goodness such as the semi-acoustic “Devil At My Door”, the “This Year’s Model”-style magic of “Poison Ivy” and the excellent closer “In The Morning”, where they follow through on their occasional Phil Spector/ Joe Meek leanings in fine style.
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OK, so there’s nothing remotely ground-breaking or envelope-shoving sonically going on here, but that’s not something we need dwell on where this bunch are concerned. What matters in this case is that “In Search Of The Needles” is about the best fun you can have without stripping off this year and that The Needles are the best British new wave purveyors this writer has heard in yonks. You’re welcome to disagree, but it’s your loss if so, because if you don’t like The Needles then you clearly don’t love great pop music. Simple as that.
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