We’ve been following Novacrow for quite some time, from a New Band Of The Day back in 2013, via a couple of EP reviews and our more recent chat with them in the runup to their New Blood appearance at Bloodstock. That’s almost a decade of sexy, silly rock.
Look At Me Now is the band’s first full length release, and was written during lockdown. Which makes sense as they had plenty of time to focus on writing while stuck indoors. Their tone hasn’t really changed with time, which isn’t a bad thing. They have a sound of their own, Kitty Staunton’s vocals being the sultry lead with her bandmates backing her up measures equally pounding and funky depending on the song.
“Shapes In The Sky” is the perfect intro to the band. It’s simple, catchy, and raunchy. Multi-layered and well produced, there’s a bit from each band member, setting up the album as a whole. “Hollow Armour” may have made a bit more sense pushed back a little deeper into the album, being rather a gentle number, but this doesn’t detract from it being a quality song. Following the louder opener, though, it does give the listener an immediate understanding that Novacrow aren’t a one-trick pony.
By the time the brash brass notes included within “Medusa Medusa” hit (the song somewhat reminiscent of Ward XVI), you know you’re not going to lack variety especially with a bargain thirteen tracks included on Look At Me Now. The album flows through the poppy “Hush”, early Manson-esque “Play My Game!”, and the absolutely belting (if slightly creepy) “Not Your Mannequin”… and we’re not even quite halfway. Like I said – Variety Central.
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“It’s Alive” kickstarts the second half of the album and sounds pretty huge. “Frankenfiiine” is funky as all… erm… funk, and features Jonyx sharing vocal duties with Kitty rather than just being a supporting voice in the background. With a title like “All I See Is Her”, I was expecting a lilting, longing ballad. Instead we have a jarring, ethereal number which you just know will feature the band lampooning around the stage if they play it live. Though in fairness that’s pretty much guaranteed live for any of their songs.
“Torn To Pieces” could be a Cannibal Corpse cover based on the title alone, though the intro is more Rage Against the Machine before diving into plain old hard rock. A great run up to the final chorus features some chanting designed for the live shows.
The acoustic guitars come out for “Day Break”, which again features great input from all of the band members where such a song often focuses purely on one or two at most. It lulls you gently before “Why Are MY Dreams Always Trying To Kill Me?” flips everything over and rattles into your ears. The album closer, though, is one of the more off-kilter choices. “My Virtues” is trippy and comes over like a well-produced jam session, perhaps more of a bonus track than an actual album finisher.
The key word that I’ve tried to avoid over-using, but which is very apt throughout Look At Me Now is “variety”. As long as you hook into the band’s pretty unique sound, there’s no way you could get bored going through this album. No two tracks even sound remotely similar, with so many curve balls hitting you on the first listen you’ll be wondering why they don’t all sign up for MLB. The only real downside to the album is that it just can’t quite capture how damn good their live show is, only hint at it. But then, it would be impossible to cram all that energy into digital files. And possibly dangerous if you did.
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Look At Me Now is out now
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