Album Review: Amyl & The Sniffers – Amyl & The Sniffers

Roaring out of the gates like an amalgam of Motorhead, AC/DC and The Datsuns, Amyl & The Sniffers show the power of simplicity, attitude and abandon on their debut self-titled album. It’s a lean 11 songs that capture the spirit and verve of their live shows surprisingly well as they avoid unnecessary studio sheen.

Gacked On Anger is the first smile-and-nod moment on the record, where the dots connect and Amy Taylor’s brattish, sneering yelps bring the visceral yet basic, garage-punk and rock riffage to life. She’s a force of nature right across the record, urgent and impassioned. The distorted bass riff that opens GFY (an acronym for Go Fuck Yourself) is a momentary reprieve before the hurricane of fast chords and four-to-the-floor drumming resumes. 

One can hear the historic traces of Australian, UK (Some Mutts (Can’t Be Muzzled) is reminiscent of The Damned’s New Rose) and US punk in the sound of The Sniffers. Their blend of melody and primitive rock’n’roll suggests they’re the latest local gem in a lineage of The Angels, The Saints and AC/DC. Taylor is clearly the star, the frontwoman balancing unhinged mania with some astute nutshell observations on love, lust and self-empowerment. Her two finest moments on the album are Got You, with verses that sound like a spiky Courtney Barnett and a tearing chorus that begs for mass singalongs at high volume, and Angel, which has a brilliant vocal hook in its chorus and guitars that sing and move like the best moments of The Sunnyboys.

Even though this is the kind of inner-city punk rock that has echoed from pubs for nearly half a century, it’s still refreshing to hear primitive, raw and febrile rock’n’roll bottled so appealingly and urgently as it is here.