Bleeding Rainbow - Interrupt

According to their label, Bleeding Rainbow’s debut LP’ sees the Philadelphian trio embrace bands from their “teenagehood”. And when those bands are, say, the Foo Fighters as suggested by the blistering riffs of ‘Tell Me’ and ‘Images’, it’s brilliant, vital stuff. And if ‘Interrupt’ were ten tracks in the ilk of this, like ‘Time & Place’, ‘Start Again’ and ‘Dead Head’, it would be a phenomenal debut.

Unfortunately, it’s more of a mixed bag. The interplay of – and swapping between – Sarah Everton and Rob Garcia’s vocals keeps things interesting, and works particularly well when juxtaposing Sarah’s girlish sighs with heavy riffage. The trio appear adept at mixing self-indulgent noodling with memorable choruses (‘So You Know’, ‘Start Again’), and using 90s grunge sounds in a way that isn’t necessarily just in homage.

But then there’s those disappointing slow bits. ‘Out Of Line’ is, well, a bit boring. ‘Monochrome’ far too introspective, ‘Cut Up’ somewhat tiresome bar the chorus, and were it not for a few sped-up moments, ‘Phase’ threatens to end the album with a whimper, rather than the bang those early tracks make it deserve.

A little less navel-gazing, and ‘Interrupt’ could be perfect. And in any case, there’s still a brilliant EP in there, hidden among the fuzz.