Crymwav: Rocking All Day And All Of The Night...

Having racked up four albums over the couple of decades, most recently with 2018’s glorious Rompous Pompous, Smash Fashion found themselves frustrated at the side of the road, having seen off yet another rhythm section. Flying V-toting glam tag-team Roger Deering and Lloyd Stewart Casson had a bunch of songs written but nowhere to go. His rock’n’roll compass spinning wildly, Deering took time out, fetching up in London on a trip to see his girlfriend. It was there that he suddenly saw the light!

“I spent some time in Ladbroke Grove, I brought my guitar and wrote a bunch of newer, darker material. I felt I was channelling the vibes of the area… Hawkwind, Motörhead and The Clash…” Add to that soupçon of Lizzy, The Damned, The Ruts, UFO – don’t forget Phil Mogg’s nephew Nigel had already slung bass with the Fashion brigade – and a liberal dose of NWoBHM and you’re getting a very heavy picture.

Calling his buddy to gas up the van, on his return, the pair hooked up with hard-hitting drummer Greg Rogers, once of Maryland metal legends The Obsessed and currently LA stoners Goatsnake, and bassist Bruce Braddock, Deering’s old sparring partner from Miami punks The Drills, who played with everyone from Bad Brains and the Dead Boys to the Ramones and Motörhead.

Locking down in their rehearsal room, they came together with a sound at once new yet one that’s paid its dues – bass-heavy and crammed with hooks, nodding to metal, punk and post punk. The results are a six-track EP titled 24/7 – the sweat-soaked door number on their downtown rehearsal dungeon.

Six hot tracks frontloaded with hungry riffage, crunching grooves and fluid, melodic Schenker-style soloing, the video for the lead track American Carnage is already picking up media traction, while the icing on the cake is a timely tribute to recently-departed Saints, Damned and Tank bassist Algy Ward, in the shape of a fine, throbbing cover of the latter’s Walking Barefoot Over Glass; an anthem in itself for these rock’n’roll vets…

“We’ve been through the record deals, the drugs, the ups and downs,” says Deering. “We’ve all gone through the rock wars and are still going. It’s what we do.”