I dunno. Wolverhampton natives Gin Annie share a label with kings of Brit sleaze The Quireboys; But whilst one of those two bands oozes pure rock n’roll essence, and the fumes that go with that particular elixir, the other is just… well, a bit polite actually.

Gin Annie definitely have their collective hearts in the right place, and all their influences are clearly here, present and correct on 100% Proof. But there’s just not enough grit under the fingernails to convince me as a disinterested outsider that there’s anything out of the ordinary going on here. Yet.

Maybe it’s the clean-sounding production, maybe it’s the slightly sterile, nay formulaic nature of some of the songs… I’m told these boys blow the roof off live, and when the wailing solo to New Bad Habit comes screaming from the speakers I can quite believe it. But in the recorded medium the band just fail to tick a few boxes for this correspondent.

I don’t know how experienced vocalist David Foster is in the studio, but to me he sounds just a bit tentative, despite clearly being able to carry a tune. If you’re going to write a song that references Skid Row and Guns n’Roses, like Next 2 Me, then it needs to be sung with the sort of lunatic abandon of a Bach or a Rose; at this point that sort of madness is missing with Gin Annie as a whole unit. It’ll come, with the confidence born of experience, but at the minute it’s the AWOL element that holds the band back.

Still, if you’ve seen the band live you’ll doubtless enjoy the memories sparked on re-hearing these songs, and we here at Sentinel Daily offer these thoughts with the best of intentions, not to try and bury a promising young outfit.

Not for me this time, then, but I’m looking forward to the next album already…

 

100% Proof is out on January 25th.