The Checks - Hunting Whales

Hunting Whales, the debut LP from New Zealand five piece, The Checks, is a half hour blues-rock stomp with a youthful, exuberant twist. Filled up with huge blues riffs, psychedelic solos and occasional forays into country rock, the old influences are weighted down by the more modern weaves of grunge and post-punk and even a little jazz coming out of the rhythm section. Sitting comfortably somewhere between The Birds and fellow New Zealanders, The Datsuns, with dashes of Nirvana and Neil Young spotted throughout, little on display would feel too out of place on a Led Zeppelin album. Lacking so much of the bitterness that comes through with the blues, replaced instead by youthful effervescence, this is a technically outstanding debut with a huge range of sounds, though after all of these years of similar sound forgery it could prove difficult to buy into this template wholeheartedly. [Neil Ferguson]