Chemicrazy

Christ, that Petrol Emotion can be dour bastards hod-carriers of polemic and bile who haul the world's worries around on their shoulders and then complain to use about the backstrain.

However, they were also one of the first punk-weaned outfits to fully assimilate the emergent dancefloor culture into mid '80s junk food rock and not wind up sounding like Level 42 at 78 r.p.m. (see Red Hot Chilli Peppers and The Beastie Boys). And if their potential was never convincingly made flesh on vinyl, their live shows could (occasionally) be truly inspiring, uplifting affairs.

But the omens for Chemicrazy, TPE's fourth album, were not good. End Of The Millennium Psychosis Blues, their last LP, was a bloated disappointment and in the press interviews which accompanied its release, the band were unrepentant about their new grebo-grunge direction. Then came the news that Sean O'Neill, source of all the emotion and most of the petrol, had decided to hang up his plectrum and call it a day.

Just when I had counted them out, however, these toxic avengers have come up with the most impressive record of their careers. Chemicrazy is a hectic, gutsy pile-up of rhythmic carnage and lyricism that should propel TPE to the top of the hardfloor dancecore heap. It could also provide the band with a couple of much needed chart hits. 'Sensitize' and 'Tingle', for example, are two sun-baked slabs of percussive funk that wouldn't look awry in any week's top twenty. Elsewhere, songs like 'Black To Blue' and 'Another Day' even manage to make the Petrol's characteristic sulleness sound good with the abrasiveness cleverly camouflaged beneath addictive melodies and stampeding drums.

Steve Mack's voice has never sounded better - an overwhelming, white-knuckled gasp for air among a spasmodic sea of pistons. Indeed his singing on the multi-stringed ballad 'Compulsion' is worth the price of admission alone.

Admittedly, there are a few relative lapses (especially the aptly titled 'Mess Of Words') but essentially Chemicrazy proves that That Petrol Emotion have reinvented themselves and renewed their fiery baptismal vows.

A genuinely manic, poppy and thrilling album.