Item: Turbo Fruits - No Control
Rating: 3

Reviewer: Louis Haines

Released: 20th April 2015

Label: Melvin Records / Thirty Tigers

Turbo Fruits have come of age, but not in the dramatic, ‘black and white instead of neon’ Blink-182 way, in a calm, decided, ‘just getting on with it’ way. Ploughing through members, changing labels with every record, it must’ve forged a certain attitude. That, and a breakup. Whilst the focus of the record is still on an imperfect love, the nagging of previous output has turned sour, and now frontman Jonas Stein is condemned to reflect.

Reflection oscillates between the hyper energetic arpeggios of ‘Favourite Girl’ and the bottom of the bottle haze of ‘Show Me Something Real’. Covering the whole gamut, Turbo Fruits lead us through the twists and turns of real love turned cold, and versus the devil may care skirt chasing of the past, it makes for a good listen.

With a woeful outlook like Cheap Trick’s wrapped in Townsend-esque guitar rock, the band stay true to their classic garage roots on this record. It might not have quite as much range as those influences, but there is some real direction injected into the LP as a whole. The meandering form of past releases gets a kick up the arse in krautrock indebted offerings like ‘The Way I Want You’ and ‘Friends’.

As a whole, it lacks something in depth. Lyrics come in straightforward style: “You and me we used to run this town, you and me have recently turned upside down” and sentiments veer wildly from track to track, but development is the buzzword for ‘No Control’. This being a garage rock album, nobody’s looking for pioneering musical ideas. With a good spread of melodies and hooks throughout, even if ideas do fly about like rice paper, it’s a strong development of a record.

Tags: Album Reviews, Reviews, Turbo Fruits