Admiration. That's a bold opening word for the review of a debut album from a young British band, but admire Spit Like This I do. I had been impressed from afar by their shameless self-promotion and their hard worth ethic of striving to do everything bigger and better than their contemporaries. I couldn't even visit the winter Memorabilia show at Birmingham's NEC to meet my favourite Z-list actors without seeing SLT's Lord Zion and Vikki Spit selling shirts and handing out "Kill A Chav" stickers. At last month's Hard Rock Hell 2 festival, I continued to be blown away as the band seemingly spent the entire evening before their (horribly early) set on the weekend's second day covering the prison complex...umm...I mean holiday camp with scores of promo posters and putting a flyer in almost every sweaty hand. But, of course, it worked a fuckin' treat as, after what seemed like mere minutes after retiring to their luxury apartments, hundreds of dishevelled rock fans turned up to see Spit Like This open the day's proceedings on the stroke of midday. Their brand of dark, camp entertainment turned the lunch hour into the witching hour and they closed their set as haunted heroes and heroine.

I was impressed enough to shell out for the album 'We Won't Hurt You (But We Won't Go Away)' - that's right, no fancy promo discs for this righteous reviewer! In all honesty, I was impressed before I even got to put the disc in the ol' death deck. The cover art and booklet are simply stunning and pretty much everything you look for with any release. Again, Spit Like This are showing others how to do it. Yes, the awesome cover painting does make it look like the end of a penis is poking out of Vikki's hot pants but, c'mon, that's how rock 'n' roll myths are made, right?!

The album itself is a devil's dozen of amazingly well-produced and freakishly fun dark terror tunes that are equal parts ambitious, self-indulgent and ass-kickingly awesome. Gloriously titled opener 'Sex, Drugs & Heavy Metal' is infected with superb backing vocals that happily haunt the entire record, a record that careens from vile vaudeville to killer cabaret. Murder ballad 'Dead Girl Walking' bleeds into serial killer tune 'Hunt You Down' with its War Machine-style riff. 'Pussywhipped' opens with unlikely yet excellent hints of Sigue Sigue Sputnik with its 80's sounding synth, before turning into a classic rock tune as soon as the full moon appears. 'Coming After You', an 80's metal throwback, is the nearest you'll get to a whiff of filler but, hey, we've all got our upside down crosses to bear. 'Sleaze Sells...But Who's Buying?' is great and the album ends in style with 'Trick Or Mistreat'.

You just know that Spit Like This are gonna tour the ass off this record. They will spread their word to thousands and they are courageously confident enough to pull it off. We need bands like this. We need people who will keep going until they get what they want. Spit Like This are deadly serious about their band without taking themselves too seriously - does that make sense? There is a dark humour to the band and their work - theirs is a tongue in the cheek of anyone who will listen. There is no point in being clever if you have bad judgement - Spit Like This appear to be the former while being severely devoid of the latter. On the strength of what I have seen and heard recently, the Spit Like This story will be a successful, albeit darkly twisted, one.

by Gaz E.

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