September is proving this year’s most productive month for striking releases and to support the claim allow us to introduce the debut album from British outfit Numb. The self-titled introduction offers up eight slices of rousing multi-flavoured rock littered with imagination spearing hooks and ear thrilling grooves. The band is also no lightweight in casting fiery seductive melodies and a rhythmic incitement which has feet and hips as submissive as the senses to the combined temptation.
Formed in 2015, Numb was the rekindling of an already established long term musical collaboration between guitarist songwriter Darren Caven-Quantrill and multi-instrumentalist composer Barney Byron (The Calling, Audioeinstein) which quickly enlisted lyricist and vocalist Lee Rayner. With its line-up subsequently completed by drummer Damo Falkowski (Deadeye), the Northampton band took their time writing and honing the sound now lighting up their debut like a beacon.
The album instantly has ears seriously attentive with the initial groove of Common Love, the lure a riveting enticement soon supported by rhythmic tenacity and a wave of infectious riffs. Establishing a stirring surge of rock ‘’n roll, the track continues to build its body and alternative nurtured temptation. The vocals of Rayner similarly grab the appetite, his tone and words bouncing on the web of guitars and bass as a great blues spicing lines the grooving and urgency guides riffs and beats but with a control and invention which enhances the instinctive infectiousness of it all.
It is an outstanding start swiftly eclipsed by the following Love Of The Cartel (Part 2). Instantly a Latin melody hugs grooves as the track seduces with a great Breed 77 like air, indeed there is a feel of the band’s frontman, Paul Isola, to Rayner’s tone. Swinging with eager and muscular dexterity, the song is pure temptation grabbing body and spirit with swift success. Not for the last time in a Numb song there is a feel of rockabilly spiced rock ‘n’ roll at work within the tapestry of metal and heavy rock and that catchiness which again simply infests the psyche.
Everyman Deserves The Right To Choose His Own Path To Hell comes next, it too sharing a spicing of the aforementioned Gibraltar band within its more composed gait. Riffs jab as beats stab, melodic flames surrounding the potent vocals of Rayner as it heads to another contagion loaded chorus so easy to get wrapped up in. There is a great theatre to the song which is only enhanced by the Muse-esque venture of the guitar towards its tantalising finale, a spirit sparking climax perfectly setting up the appetite for the compelling enterprise of Time. The stringed temptation of the guitars is instant seduction and only accentuated by the rampaging thick tide of riffs and the tone gurning bass. The song relaxes into a stable energy as vocals enter the affair but eventually everything becomes turned on and hits top gear with mouth-watering imagination. The song is glorious, never settling down into any sense of predictability with each cycle a new and fresh adventure.
There is an industrial hue to certainly the opening bait of The Tears You Cry, its cosmopolitan suggestion aligned to thought teasing melody before it all evolves into a raptorial rock ‘n’ roll prowl led by Rayner’s expressive presence. The bolder invention of its predecessor is more subdued in the track but not absent and it does not stop it grabbing tightly ears and a by now greedy appetite for the release and increasing the pleasure. That extra strain of imagination is saved instead for successor Love Of The Cartel (Part 1). Why part 1 is after 2 we cannot say but the track is a journey of sound and emotion in its own extensive right. Caressing melodies court Rayner’s emotive voice, the bass a melancholic yet vibrant companion as the song reveals its creative and emotional drama. Like a growing battlefield within which sabre like hooks flash and fly as riffs and running grooves entwine and rhythms badger the senses, the track is sheer magnetism. In time volatility hits voice and heart, antagonism fuelling emotional outbursts before it is all pulled back into the surging infection of the thrilling encounter.
The release is concluded by the final pair of War and Burn. The first carries a steely antagonism in its riffs and rhythms, a defiant attitude which shapes the song’s physical and vocal character as well as its melodic reflection, while the second rumbles and grumbles with a Danzig like hue, twisting with irritability and turning with complimenting temptation. Both tracks leave greed for band and sound further intense and with us an already impatient anticipation for what comes next from Numb.
There are numerous times when as a reviewer you feel really blessed to have the opportunity to cover new music and there are other times when you feel truly honoured; this is one of the latter moments.
The Numb album is available now through Attic Records @ http://atticrecordsuk.bigcartel.com/product/numb
https://www.facebook.com/NUMB.co.uk/ https://twitter.com/Numbsters
Pete RingMaster 15/09/2017
Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright
The RingMaster Review 
Leave a Reply