The Mysterines - Reeling (2022)

Thanks to the youthful but tantalising grunge of the self-released EP Take Control in 2019, the Mysterines, initially coalesced around singer/guitarist Lia Metcalfe, George Favager (bass) and Chrissy Moore (drums), had caught the ear of BBC Introducing's talent scouts, who placed them on their radio airwaves and promptly invited them to play their Reading and Leeds festival springboard stage. This huge exposure opened the door to support acts such as Royal Blood and The Amazons, and created enough anticipation for their first full-length album. Released on the Fiction label, Reeling, a 43-minute rock explosion, allows the Liverpudlians to come out of the woodwork. Not without pain. After a year of ups and downs, a change of drummer and an extra guitarist, the quartet had to lock themselves up for three weeks in Assault & Battery studios, between two London confinements, to record under the watchful eye of producer and sound engineer Catherine Marks (Foals, Wolf Alice, The Killers). And all this was sometimes done in one take.

It was a difficult gestation period that ended up being beneficial, according to drummer Paul Crilly: "We couldn't go out without forgetting the album, or spending time with other people. It was a real relief to hand it over once we'd done our bit." This tension captured within four walls creates the raw material and guides the tracklisting. At the climax of this pressure, this rock on the grill, opens Life's A Bitch (But I Like It So Much) and then Hung Up, with their fat riffs and saturations. The pressure eases but remains legible on the more country Old Friend / Die Hard and the guitar ballad Still Call You Home. They end insidiously on the dark and creepy Nick Cave-like slowness of Confession Song with its gothic piano. "When I first listened to the test pressing, I could feel all those moments in the studio again," says Crilly. Boosted by Lia's voice, like a destructive high priestess of rock, the aptly named Reeling unfolds an unbridled rock nuance, from garage captured on the fly to more delicately laid-back pop melodies. Amazing and rather mature for a band barely out of their teens. Qobuzissime!

TRACKLIST

1. The Mysterines - Life's a Bitch (But I Like it So Much)
2. The Mysterines - Hung Up
3. The Mysterines - Reeling
4. The Mysterines - Old Friends / Die Hard
5. The Mysterines - Dangerous
6. The Mysterines - On The Run
7. The Mysterines - Under Your Skin
8. The Mysterines - The Bad Thing
9. The Mysterines - In My Head
10. The Mysterines - Means To Bleed
11. The Mysterines - All These Things
12. The Mysterines - Still Call You Home
13. The Mysterines - Confession Song