Demos

The Red Zoids - Kicking Screaming

Owain Paciuszko 11/10/2010

Rating: 4/5

Debut three track from London-based rock band The Red Zoids sounds like a product from another time, in a pretty good way. Opener Wind It Up sounds like its a bootleg of a late-sixties rock outfit recorded from an intimate but noisy basement performance, it's a laidback if shouty rocker with shades of Brewer & Shipley squeezing into a blender with Free. Second track Little Yellow Bag is a squawky strut with a buoyant melody and a knowing, world-wearied vocal from Jimi O and a carefree chorus, all sounding like an early Rolling Stones track. It's even got a really great drum solo from Parisian Thibaut Leroy with each member of the band rejoining the track one by one before a infectiously fun retread of the chorus.

Final track I Am The Man goes a bit Steppenwolf at the start and has nifty guitar work from Big Willy Smith (they also have a bass player called The Raven), and Jimi O's vocal is a echoey Black Sabbath-esque holler.

What impresses about The Red Zoids is that they don't feel like a contemporary band influenced by the rock and roll heyday, instead they feel like a band from the rock and roll heyday that's somehow wound up in our contemporary era. This EP is great fun (though the artwork is awful).