Tag: miod rock

The Light at the End of The Bottle of Dog

The Light at the End of The World is a fourteen tracks strong album which scores a goal directly from the kick-off with the aptly titled opener Let’s Go. Released at the beginning of the month (August 2024) the timeless goodness of hard rock is firing off on all cylinders, and it doesn’t wait for the opponent to tie their shoelaces. What did you expect? This is a band called Bottle of Dog, who use a logo design adapted from the Newcastle Brown Ale label….

Lady Red follows, then Push Up Push On, and this Chippenham three-piece indie self-defined raw powerhouse shows no sign of letting up. There’s something ZZ Top about all this love at first sight monster. The band was accidental; formed from a one-off gig, now on their two-hundredth, a splendid accident.

Their Facebook blurb pigeonholes it as indie, combining “seventies classic rock sounds with modern day indie,” yet I find it takes four tunes to meander from the outright frenzy of early eighties hard rock. The riff of Chancing hints at mod rock of the same era, something that reminds me of the Undertones, or and especially, Secret Affair. Better Than Me, which follows immediately after tingles with a goth rock edge. Clearly there’s more going on here than the initial blast, but through influence nods it never loses its frenetic, loud and proud edge.

Okay, The Light at the End of The World doesn’t dare to experiment, opting for the tried and tested rock template, and only moving from subgenre to subgenre, but it does so thunderously and with the “if it broke” notion; hard not to like unless you’re George Gershwin! And anyway, before you know it, Loveable Idiot at the halfway point has taken us back to hard rock, and you won’t be complaining. It’s authentic noise, lyrically felicitous and admissible for the bill.

Three quarters through the album you consider yourself safe from getting a slushy or moody angled track, Bottle of Dog give it their all throughout. Break the Page perhaps the pre-eminent, a rolling riff to make to hurry your fag and get back inside the pub to headbang! The penultimate Captain’s on Board, has an anti-establishment yell, providing adequate narrative over the rolling drums and a “Hey!” chorus, which leaves you confident the audience of a live gig will be singing back to them no matter how unaware of these confident originals they are, or pissed they happen to be!

And we finish with Zombie Town, which quotes London as the inspiration, alien to the communal Chippenham, yeah, keep your nose out, pal! Unsure if any inner meaning to this, or if this is quite a light at the end of any road, or album, as the title may suggest, but it sure is fiery fun, quality blaring and doesn’t come up for air. If a metaller went to a boozer expecting covers of Ace of Spades and Hallowed Be Thy Name, or punk wanting White Riot and Teenage Kicks, neither would go home disappointed if Bottle of Dog simply runs off this album. 

They play the Fleece in Bristol 8th September, The Royal Oak, Corsham 2nd November, Colerne Liberal Club on 7th December.

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Rooks; New Single From M3G

Chippenham folk singer-songwriter, M3G (because she likes a backward “E”) has a new single out tomorrow, Friday 19th December. Put your jingly bell cheesy tunes…

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