The Mosquitoes

The Mosquitoes are a hard-edged Dublin trio trading in the kind of fiery, blues based R’n’B that hasn’t been much in favour since back in the day, when outfits like Dr Feelgood, Nine Below Zero and the Steve Gibbons Band worked weekend crowds into a sweat-soaked frenzy.

Combining an impressively wide range of influences from rockabilly to garage-punk they set out their stall right from the start on the frantically-paced opener, ‘Sweet So Sweet’, which sounds here like it was recorded in a basement club somewhere off the Reeperbahn in the early 1960s. ‘The Rip Curl Shaker’ comes across like one of those Dick Dale surf tunes as mangled so well in the past by The Cramps but given a whole new lease of life. The smouldering ‘Voodoo Doll’ sounds exactly as its title suggests and would happily grace any David Lynch movie soundtrack while ‘Cars, Girls And Drinking’ just about sums up the timeless appeal of this combo. There are no fancy, high-falutin’ production tricks or studio gimmicks to be found here – what you hear is probably what you get live and no bad thing.

More of this kind of stuff please!