Grand Theft Audio: London Barfly
By: NME Reviews
March 21st 2001 8:50am
"This is for all of you who remember punk rock before it became pussy-whipped and afro-styled," spits Grand Theft Audio frontman Jay Butler with a little shudder of fastidious revulsion. "'One-Armed Scissor' my arse!" Ding! Ding! Round two. Everyone who welcomed the emergence of the likes of At The Drive-In as an antidote to Limp Bizkit-style stoopid rock - look away now. Grand Theft Audio are as stupid as they wanna be and, as new single 'We Luv U' conveniently explains, you will love it. Take one part Three Colours Red (guitarist Chris McCormack), two parts Wildhearts (bassist Ralph Jezzard and drummer Ritch Battersby) and then throw in the biggest ego you can find (frontman Jay Butler) and subtlety is never going to be on the agenda. Take into account the fact that Ralph co-wrote EMF's classic 'Unbelievable' and anyone who cherishes the finer things in life should, by now, be running for the hills. Boil it down and it's just the Sex Pistols with a time-machine as envisaged by Jesus Jones in 1990. But that doesn't explain how much dirty fun the electroid rock of 'Death To The Infidels' and 'Stoopid Ass' is. Boil it down further and it's a rhythm section getting gleefully hysterical, a frontman determined to aggravate and delight in equal measure and riffs that sound like the biggest zipper in the world being rapidly zipped and unzipped: cock rock par excellence. ATD-I are the more salubrious, innovative wing of punk but Grand Theft Audio belong to an older, dirtier tradition. They just wanna rawk and who would begrudge them that? Trevor Baker NME.COM for all your musical needs: The fastest music news, the fullest live reviews, the fattest feature exclusives
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