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Tuned-down, thuggish riffage played by a Birmingham power trio of veterans, “Crazy” is the sort of song best played at stun volume. Dave Twist’s heavily propulsive drumming recalls Rock Action on the A side. Paint-stripper guitar and a fuck you vocal make “Crazy” glow with more menace menace than a short-changed back-street mugger after chiucking out time.

These guys have doubled as Walter Lure’s UK backing band and although “Crazy” is more Sabbath than “Going Steady,” you can appreciate that Waldo’s foot soldiers are tarred with a similar brush. The B side is even better than the A. Alan Byron locks onto a riff and doesn’t let go. Darren Birch’s simple bass-line throbs away under a ragged vocal. An album of this stuff would go down well.

The band has issued this on their own label but it’s being distributed via Easy Action. Go here for the goods or risk a good thumping.

Another day, another blues duo. Or so it seems. The economics of travelling light are obvious for a band playing ballsy blues-rock in these lean times, so it’s a relief when they actually sound good.

If Thee Oh Sees are a version of The Replacements for the Two-Thousand-And-Teens - as in critical darlings overlooked by the mainstream, including me in both instances - where does that leave Montreal’s PYPY? Playing this sort of fucked-up mix of psych, electronica and punk is not going you pigeonholed anywhere fast.

Photographer, chronicler of New York City's punk scene and onetime minder for Iggy & the Stooges and manager of Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers, Leee Black Childers, has died.

You have to love a backstory that goes like this: Three Italian punks land in the holiday town of choice for India’s Silicon Valley set, get ripped on illicit substances, munch out on flamethrower hot curries and strike out with the local chicks. They fly home to Europe, claiming the town’s name for their band and (allegedly) swiping some exotic musical influences.