Released in 2012, Sweet Sour saw the bluesy Southampton guitar rock trio moving out of the garage and into a flat, offering up a lustrous, loud, and wistful (yet still gritty enough to evoke a few White Stripes comparisons) set of moody English alt-rock confections that provided a little distance from the myriad American post-garage rock revivalists that they're so often lumped in with. Himalayan, the trio's third long-player, douses everything in a slick coating of chrome (thanks in large part to Yeah Yeah Yeahs producer Nick Launay), positioning the group somewhere between the cool, calculated swagger of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and the equally copacetic posturing of the Duke Spirit. There are occasions when the extra dollop of polish elevates instead of over-inflates, like on the relentless, piston-like "Hoochie Coochie," the lush and languid closer "Get Yourself Together," and the brooding, midnight-black highway rocker "I Feel Like Ten Men, Nine Dead and One Dying," the latter of which fuses the ghoulish retro-rockabilly gait of "Hollywood Babylon"-era Misfits with the meaty riffage of Icky Thump. ~ James Christopher Monger
- Format: Vinyl
- Genre: Pop
