Tough Baby

Pink colored vinyl. Unsurprisingly, Tough Baby is a record with purpose and resolve. Nothing is wasted. Sometimes the music feels deliberately compressed, the essences extracted and bottled into an overpowering cordial, as on '115 At Night', which sounds like an '80s Van Halen track being squeezed into another shape. And it's difficult to see how a track like 'Virtuous Industry' can hold itself together, such are the sonic hoops it jumps through. The sharp angles and hook-laden guitar lines that were once seen as a trademark sound are less in evidence. Last track 'Crackin Up' does nod back to earlier releases with a booming beat and guitars that snag, like wool on barbed wire.