Pet Lamb: “Black Mask” (Roadrunner)

Another Irish band who’ve made the hazardous leap from live performance to the recording studio and kept their faculties intact. ‘Black Mask’ is a crazed guitar ride to hell and a nefarious power-swapping pact with the horned god himself. Climbing from agony to ecstasy, the vocals are in combat with a stampeding, rabid bull hardcore and percussion which epitomises the human personality at war with itself, what this song is all about, I think. Listen out for the spine-chilling hound’s yowl at the end.