Album Review

Sixty Watt Bayonets – Pounding Hearts, Fighting Words

• 14th Jul 2009

Sixty Watt Bayonets are a one woman out front, couple of blokes behind, band from Reading, looking to emulate the success of similar set up’s like The Yeah Yeah Yeah’s or Noisettes.
And in lead singer, Penny Bayonet, they have a similarly powerful voice to Karen O or Shingai Shoniwa, backed by energetic drum and guitar playing from her male counterparts. However, where both the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s and Noisettes have recently gone for a lot more poppy and accessible sound, with great success, the Bayonets debut EP still feels a bit too rough and raw.

You can’t fault them on brevity – no track goes past the three minute mark – and their frenetic punk/garage rock vigour persistently shines through. But instead of being charming and engaging, the vocals aren’t quite tuneful enough and after a few shouty outings they really start to grate.

On the whole ‘Pounding Hearts, Fighting Words’ is a likeable enough collection of short, sharp indie nuggets, and it’s probably unfair to compare them to established bands at this point, so here’s to the Bayonet’s continued refinement.