Beasts of Bourbon - Little Animals (Album)

There are great album openers, there are sublime album openers, and then there is ‘I Don’t Care About Nothing Anymore’. Little Animals begins with The Beasts’ laying down the nirvana of nihilism, the kind of insouciance statement that most ‘punk’ bands would give their gold cards to have written. Thick, meaty chords are layered over a granite drumbeat like great slices of ox hewn off its flanks with a chainsaw. And then Tex bursts in snarling with one of the all-time great rock’n’roll statements: “I used to give my money to the mother@#$ing poor, but I don’t care about nothin’ anymore”. This is rock genius at work, the supreme melding of lyric, music and delivery.

The problem for Little Animals is that the opener is so good that you will be tempted to put this on ‘repeat’ and forget the rest of the album.

Big mistake.

Little Animals is proof positive that The Beasts of Bourbon are one of our most shamefully underrated bands. Romance is not dead, but Tex and co slowly strangle the life out of it in ‘Master and Slave’. The title track starts to sound almost melodic and cute – ‘’What have we done to the animals’, the ‘cuddly little animals’ is the plaintive cry, but don’t worry, The Beasts haven’t gone soft, they soon become the ‘tasty little animals’ and we eat them. This album lurches and swaggers from one classic to the next, knocking every affectation and subtlety sideways. ‘Sleepwalker’ isn’t so much played on guitars but backed by guitars being throttled until they vomit in decibels.

Reports of the death of The Beasts of Bourbon have been greatly exaggerated. I doubt very much if it’s even possible to kill them. This isn’t a return to form as it’s doubtful as to whether they have ever been out of form. Little Animals is rock stripped back to its elemental brilliance.

Crank up the volume and savour every mouthful.

Share this review on Facebook