Artist: The Chucky Monroes Title: Fallen Angel Label: Laughing Outlaw File Under: A keroscene disco swamp on fire RIYL: Nick Cave circa Tender Prey, Beasts of Bourbon, King Daddy Produced by Australia's own Phil Spector, Tony Cohen, Fallen Angel is the debut release from The Chucky Monroes. Never heard of them? Well if you've heard Tumbleweed or Died Pretty, then you've heard members Muzza, Al and Simon who've played in or with them over the years. And just as Tumbleweed broke down preconceptions of how an Australian band should sound, so too do The Chucky Monroes, despite the goddawful moniker. Influenced heavily by southern US grind blues yet pumped out via a Marshall stack set to 11, that's the best way to describe opening track "Mortal Remains". Cut to track 4, "Heavenly Eyes", and we're given a melody line reminiscent of the Animals on "House of the Rising Sun", a drunken slur of a guitar strum, shot in the back by a slide guitar and a remorse-ridden vocal drawling, "those eyes, those eyes" and then, "shining in the darkness like burning lights/ only to be put out by losing my sight." Ouch. This is no Silverchair. There's something rectum-wrenching in Muzza's voice, so deep it touches bass where nary a guitar has ever roamed. In "Going Down Fighting" he's got the swagger of a Tex Perkins or a Jon Spencer, but there's a vulnerability, a fear there the others can't find, and the mayhem created as guitar, slide and drums thrash together is held tightly together, but only just. Bruised ballads, ball busters and bourbon soaked blues rock. A fine way to start the year.