Mutts The Mutts

Right, let's get the cards on the table straight away. If there's one thing that simply doesn't convince me, it's the power of rock 'n' roll. While some may laud the basic urge to pick up a guitar and form a band, the gesture itself has never been enough for me. You can talk about Dylan, and the way a lone-troubadour with a guitar changed a generation, or about the invention of the teenager by four floppy-haired Scousers who just played guitars, or about the power of punk, about the force of the four-piece, and the way just hammering elementary chords can ignite the world. But Dylan was about timing and change, one of a gang of musicians and musicologists - see the Seegers, for example - who felt that a whole way of seeing the world and signing about it was dying out, and who thought deeply about the way that America's blues musicians had seen the world and related it to their audience. These were musicians who considered the way people felt pain, and the way they might rebel. While the Beatles, for all their apparent naivety and enthusiasm, were the product of art-school educations and a work ethic formed in Hamburg clubs, forged with brilliant orchestration and production. And as for punk, well, for every Sid Vicious there's ten walls-of-sound in the background - just listen to the overdubs on Anarchy in the UK.

So when people start talking about "glorious noise", "primal urges" and "raw vocals" I start to get concerned. Particularly as there's so much of it around at the moment, and so much of it is crap. Ironically, for all that Kings of Leon try to sound like they've crawled out of a swamp, there's still Angelo pulling the strings behind them, and while Jet look like a bunch of tramps, there's a whole gang of stylists spraying their clothes with beer and piss. It's a myth that bands just magic music out of the air, or that it's some sort of ambiental power that you can plug into. Everyone thinks about music. It's just that some people think about it better than others.

Hence my concern about The Mutts and their visceral reaction against, as they term it "all the crap out there". For a start, there's no point taking on the music industry, unless you're only in it to make money. Secondly, trying to outdo the Datsuns of this world for genuineness can only ever turn into a brainless battle of machismo. I'm never convinced by balls-out, hit it till it bleeds rock. The Vines, Jet, blah blah blah, for all their vaunted rock 'n' roll authenticity, simply make me think of tramps shouting at passers by outside Camden tube station.

All of which said, this extended EP from local boys The Mutts, who consist of Chris Murtagh's guard-dog vocals, and gutsy accompaniment from Bryan Shore (guitar), Sam Burgess (bass) and Adam Watson (drums), reveals an outfit full of verve and swagger. Tracks like Blasted and Uniform do anything that more feted followers of Television and the Stones can, and, possibly, a little more. Rumoured to be strong live, Murtagh and friends show influences from the Ramones and MC5. Still though, this overplayed, over-hyped genre is no place for originality, and so much of what is on offer here, though well put together and perfectly executed, is interchangeable with the work of other axe-wielding growlers.

Powerful, yes; exciting, yes, probably also. Inspirational? Clever? Provocative? Well of course not. That's not the point, is it.