If Iggy had been a woman and from Dublin...

IF Iggy Pop has been a woman and from Dublin then there is a certain chance he would have been a Panther Queen...

Yep Vengeance and the Panther Queen, with the release of the début ep have encapsulated the insanity of prime time Iggy before he started selling car insurance.

And let's face it when the title of the ep is "We Who Feel Our Lobes of Penitence Groped By Things With Petrol Claws" you know that sanity has been left lonely on the doorstep while the party rages on indoors.

As regular readers will know this blog does not believe in classifying the multitude of genres that print mags inpose on music. Where they would start in classifying Vengeance and the Panther Queen is another matter. The PR blurb describes them as "Irish Punk-Mental-Party Rock Metallists" which is sort of right, but not close to the chaotic joy; joy with a snarl and attitude dripping off every screamed note and soaring solo.

We confidently predict that 70% of the readers of this column will not give Vengeance and the Panther Queen a second listen. Their loss. Another 15% will give it a firm Whiskey Foxtrot Tango before walking off wondering what the world is coming to. The remaining 15% will get the brews in, and have their ears assaulted in the Panther Queen's weird world.

This four-tracker is a cocked single finger to convention, a spit in the face of the Cowel culture of manufactured shit.

It kicks off with 'This Is Not A Dignified Way to Make A Living' which stomps: background choral vocals a strange but fitting counterpoint to Tara McCormack's banshee shrieks. Layered beneath it all are metal grooves that develop like lost power chords in the maelstrom, with solos appearing both with the simplicity of punk riffing and also metal shredding from Mik Pyro and Darrock, who appears to have lost either a surname or a given name...

Benjamin Loose on bass and Andres Antunes on drums seem the only anchors as this ship of mania tumbles around the strange seas of whatever psychiatric, but wonderful delusion, weaves its way away from the shores of convention.

'My Ebola' is that fuck you towards the scenesters and their blind following of what is right according to the media darlings and the pretentios pseuds. This is punk as it was meant to be, with speed and riffs as an added bonus. And the short solo that ends this...well it could fit on many a metal geetarists 'best of; list.

With no time to waste, Tara beckons us to the worst house party for pacifists as she declares her intention on 'Party Fight'. In a world faced with austerity for the poor and working classes while rich bankers swan around in their Bentleys this Party Fight is where the balance may be redressed. Politicians? We vote, they don't care, we then party.

Concluding with a cover of a Million Dead Cops 'I Hate Work' this is a more straightforward track, and while equally enjoyable doesn't quite have the edge of Vengeance and the Panther Queen own tracks.

On one level this ep is so far off the avant garde scale that it makes Metallica and Lou Reed's Lulu shite seem acceptable pop rock. On another it has the punk edge that challenges, spits and pogos as if there was a sea of mods to dance upon.

Yeah, so quite a few won't get the Vengeance and the Panther Queen vibe, but if Iggy Pop ever gives up appearing on ads for car insurance then he can book himself to support Vengeance and rediscover why the Stooges captured a generation of misfits. Vengeance and the Panther Queen have their Petrol Claws embedded in our flesh and that pain feels soooo good.