Ladyfinger - Heavy Hands

Be baptised in the broth. The rock broth. Tea-bag it. Tea-bag the broth of rock.' Behind this doubtlessly ironic gem of hyperbole hide Ladyfinger, a band with a remarkable determination to play the same song ten times in half an hour. It's a good song - fast, heavy, duelling guitars, hysterical vocals and power chords flailing towards a sudden finish, and they avoid false sensitivity. However, the album feels like a first draft, an enthusiastic band shoved into the studio before reflection and development could corrupt their energy. Ladyfinger avoid some of the more excessive clichés of metal - the guitar solos are menacing rather than flamboyant, and the steady rhythmic chug is stripped punk lean. The lyrics are lost beneath old fashioned histrionics, which might be just as well - what emerges sounds like predictable sloganeering. As a live proposition, they might be threatening and thrilling: on CD, they are predictable and unimaginative. [Gareth K Vile]