NOISE Annoys is back from holiday and pleased to report that the big truck keeps on rolling: Co Armagh rockers Trucker Diablo have a new LP out right now and are about to celebrate it with a launch gig in Belfast tomorrow evening.
The quartet's latest offering, Fighting For Everything, furnishes fans with 11 tracks of mega-riffing hook-laden heavy rock action that are ripe for radio play.
Super-catchy album opener Born Trucker sets out the band's stall in style, a fast-paced, mosh-friendly rallying call to the faithful equipped with some nice metal-style lead guitar work.
There's plenty more fret-melting action throughout the band's latest self-released fan-funded record, though they do close it out with a heartfelt string-laden rock ballad, When The Waters Rise, just to catch you off guard.
Other stand-outs including headbanger anthems We Will Conquer All and Pocket Full of Changes, superb thrash-punky sing-along Die For You, muscular mid-paced thumper Detroit Steel and the album's chuggingly anthemic title track.
The latter seems very much like a statement of intent for a band who seemingly thrive on doing things themselves and in their own way. More power to 'em.
Join the Trucker Diablo convoy tomorrow night at BarSub in the depths of QUBSU, where able-bodied support comes from Gasoline Outlaws. Tickets are £8 via Events.glistrr.com/qub.
And so to a new version of an old favourite: George Best 30 is The Wedding Present's long-awaited re-recording of George Best, the mighty indiepop combo's classic 1987 debut LP, as captured live in the studio by feted engineer Steve Albini.
It's an odd experience listening to a new version of a favourite album that's long been an essential part of the soundtrack to your life.
I know every lyric, note and nuance of George Best – which was released exactly 30 years ago yesterday – from frontman David Gedge's deep intake of breath at the start of album opener Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft – a moment which still brings me out in goosebumps 21 years after first hearing it – through to the last ringing chord of You Can't Moan Can You.
I can even recite the little interstitial snippets of studio dialogue ("If you ask me if that guitar sounds nice I'll say 'yes, it sounds nice'") verbatim.
Featuring top Wedding Present tunes like A Million Miles, My Favourite Dress, Something And Nothing and Give My Love To Kevin, the songs which established the band as Britain's premier purveyors of indie rock heartbreak, George Best is probably my favourite record by one of my all-time favourite bands – so the news that Gedge and co had decided to record a new version of it inspired both curiosity and mild apprehension.
The latter emotion is ridiculous, of course: this 30th anniversary revisitation of The Wedding Present's debut was never intended to replace one of the best debut albums of the indie rock idiom.
Having just recorded their 2008 LP El Rey with Albini – who also handled their 1991 high watermark Seamonsters – Gedge and co persuaded him to roll tape while they hammered out the full George Best set they'd been playing live throughout 2007's 20th anniversary tour in the studio.
Thus, GB30 is more like a radio session type affair than a 'proper' re-recorded album – well within their wheelhouse, given the amount of John Peel Sessions and other wireless-related work the band have done over the years.
Wedding Present main man David Gedge is the only band member to actually play on both versions, the Leeds-bred indie combo's line-up having changed umpteen times since 1987 and indeed since even GB30 was recorded.
Gedge is no longer the gruff indie barker he was on the original album: 21st century Gedge fancies himself as a bit of a crooner. While there's no doubting the Weddoes' leader is a better singer in a technical sense these days, the issue of whether this actually suits his early songs and indeed the band in general continues to divide fans.
One thing most WP fans and Mr Gedge have long agreed upon is that some of Chris Allison's production on the original George Best is undeniably 'dead 80s' sounding, particularly the abundance of booming 'electronically-enhanced' drums which probably have no place on the debut platter by a group of indiepop guitar batterers.
Naturally, the band corrected this for GB30: however, those hoping for a version of George Best enhanced by the concussive clatter of other Albini-helmed work like Nirvana's In Utero or Surfer Rosa by Pixies will be disappointed by the fact that drummer Graeme Ramsay's hitting sounds so 'normal'.
The guitars on GB30 are also a little on the timid side, which will likely please no-one.
The furiously strummed janglegeddon of Gedge and original Wedding Present six-stringer Peter 'Grapper' Solowka was front and centre in the mix of the original, but on the anniversary version, Gedge and his 2008 sideman Chris McConville deliver a much more refined twin guitar performance which fails to match the visceral quality of the 1987 LP's (presumably) multi-layered assault.
Combined with a rather 'safe' mix by Grammy-winner Andrew Scheps (who also twiddled the knobs on the band's current LP, Going, Going...), this means GB30 definitely lacks some of the original's infectious ear-bashing brio.
However, the often under-appreciated strength of Gedge's early songwriting stands the collection in good stead: with the volume cranked up and a similarly enthusiastic clockwise tweak of the treble control, George Best 30 is still a great listen.
In fact, the 'new' version of Anyone Can Make a Mistake might actually be (whisper it now) better than the original.
To quote one of the band's famous T-shirts, all the songs still sound the same – mostly – and George Best 30 is well worth checking out if you've had any sort of positive relationship with the original 1987 album.
Here's to another 30 years of furiously strummed lovelorn indie rocking.
Finally for this week, those who find themselves in the vicinity of No Alibis on Botanic Avenue in Belfast this evening should ensure that they pop in to catch a special instore show by Arborist, AKA Mark McCambridge.
Mark will be performing a solo set in the intimate setting of Belfast's best bookshop, so if you enjoyed last year's superb Home Burial LP as much as I did, do make it your business to be there.
Doors are at 7.30pm and admission is £7.
