be your own PET - be your own Pet Album Review

be your own PET
'be your own Pet'
XL Recordings
27th March

OMG! Deez r like da bestest band I eva heard!! So I doubt those were some label scouts exact words but gleeful A&R pant wetting aside, be your own PET were always going to have to face the firing squad. Four precocious 17 year olds thrust into the limelight on the back of CDR demo 'Damn Damn Leash' saw the sort of fawning delirium now afforded to the Arctic Monkeys. A year later and their latest CDR, decidedly more professional, is a raucous freewheeling caterwaul of a debut.

15 tracks of volatile guitar fuzz fuelled by lead singer Jemina Pearl's cutesy tantrum vocals and Jamin Orall's tirelessly frenzied drumming has this long player brimming with single potential. Opener 'Thresher's flail' has the kind of stadium rock build up Motley Crue could call their own before launching into the blisteringly energetic sound associated with a byoP live show. With Yeah Yeah Yeah's comparisons understandably rife, both albums incidentally are released on March 28th, you wonder if the towns big enough for the both of them. Who cares?! There'll be a hell of a ruckus anyway.

Playful, mischievous and incessantly rampant it's the soundtrack to; trashing the mall, careering down the steepest hill without holding the handlebars, kicking the neighbour's cat, hiding in the girl's locker room and letting the cop's tyres down. The punk funk laden 'Adventure' represents their most accessible moment to date, complete with wavering Karen O vocals – it's the song Yeah Yeah Yeahs didn't release. There's the bass buzz and whining guitar of 'Wildcat', the 58 second blitzkrieg of speedcore percussion and yapped vocals that is 'Let's get sandy (Big Problem)' whilst 'October, First Account' see further shades of YYY's with some finger pickin' bass and ragged off beat rhythms yet this album still has some legs. The triple header of the breathless 'Love your Shotgun' the barking, feisty 'Fill my Pill' and the feel good stamp of album closer 'Ouch' should make March 28th a significant date in your diary. It's the destructive energy of punk meets unbridled youthful exuberance and the end result is a sound so uncompromisingly thrashing that, tantalisingly threatens to go drastically wrong. It doesn't and they don't seem to care anyway. An astoundingly good debut.

Reef Conroy

Review 2

Be Your Own PET
Album Review

"I AM AN INDEPENDENT MOTHERFUCKER! AND I'M HERE TO TAKE YOUR MONEY, AND I'M HERE TO STEAL AWAY YOUR VIRGINITY!" wails Jemima Pearl against a blood vessel bursting punk racket on "Bunk Trunk Skunk". Even the toughest Oasis fan would hear this and whimper "take what you want, just don't hurt my face."

Yes, Be Your Own PET's debut album is a scattergun effort, all scuzzy discordant guitars and rapidfire drums set to Pearl's Karen O from Hell screams. It speeds by, encompassing 15 songs in just over half an hour, but after about eight tracks, it all blends in to one big noise. But what a noise it is.

From start to finish, the frenetic, hormonal punk doesn't let up, like the mind of a fifteen year old schoolboy who has just found a hole in the girls' changing room wall. "Stairway to Heaven" is a prime example, the polar opposite of its classic rock namesake. While the band make an unholy row, Pearl bellows out of the speakers, "My brain is on fire… when it's all over you can come and kiss me right here." And she looked like such a sweet girl…

This is undoubtedly a record about being a teenager, the reckless desires, the feeling that you have no control over them, and the short attention span as result, particularly on songs like "Bicycle, Bicycle, You Are My Bicycle", "Wildcat" and "Love Your Shotgun".

There will, of course be comparisons to The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and understandably so, they both specialise in female lead, face busting rock, but where Karen O's crew pen songs about the sleaze of the city, Be Your Own PET are just interested in the carnal desires within when you're young. However, on this LP, BYOP do not really show the sonic scope that The Yeah Yeah Yeahs do, and some listeners might find the sheer onslaught of it to be tedious. But, if you listen to it, loud, you'll appreciate the overall ambience of the album, if not any particular tracks.

So, if you're about fifteen, buy this album, it will sound like the inside of your head, and let's face it, it's a hell of a lot better than Hillary Duff. If you're not buy it anyway and let it take you back, because after a listen to this album, you'll feel dirty, used and violated. In a good way.

Ben Davy