GIRLS AGAINST BOYS: “Cruise Yourself” (Touch & Go)

Just how bad is the bad side of town? It depends on the people you’re around, and Girls Against Boys are chasing the light that sparkles for a moment in almost-drained glasses. Cruise Yourself is like a Mickey Rourke movie, a journey through a city covered in fog.

Travelling with Girls Against Boys you get snatches of neon signs. You hear half-finished sentences go stale as something else momentarily catches someone else’s interest. You hear the bass rumble. You feel like getting drunk and forgetting about it all. It’s an atmosphere of smoke and love affairs that live better in dreams.

Scott McLoud sings like he has just had a fire quenched in his throat, while around him the music rolls on like some ageing but reliable train. All the sounds of engines and brakes, and pistons that are bass chords. Humping and thumping, heading for any destination worth heading for. And sometimes you think its heading out of control.

“Kill that noise/Kill the noise/Make it alright/Kill the drummer/Kill the bass player/Kill both bass players/This song is so hip right now I’m going deaf/I wanna kill the singer,” McCloud throats on ‘Kill The Sexplayer.’ And the groove is there, dancing on metal and skin gravestones.

This is a sort of loser that isn’t really a loser sort of album. It’s grim and its spits, and shit, it’d be hard to impress it, but it’s determined that whatever happens it will go out driving. Dark is the night and Girls Against Boys belong there, setting up their gear in seedy bars, where nobody cares. And when they play, some drunks will lounge up into the limelight, hugging each other so that they can stand up to dance. And before you know it, the place is sweating, and punters are grinning through broken teeth as the band play fervently on through the night.

• Gerry McGovern