Those that know me best (take pity on them, please) will tell you that my preferred choice of post-work listening tends to be something bastard-heavy and totally mum-unfriendly. Only last night I returned home to find my girlfriend enjoying some anti-folk nonsense. Needless to say that it was swiftly replaced by some Isis and 5ive. Yet Hella present me with a problem: on the one hand, their crazy-fast, Lightning Bolt-style rawk ‘n’ rawl action has me pounding my chest like a Gorilla Biscuit; yet on the other, they’re capable of feather-light, easy on the ear diversions. How can this be? Best consult the scriptures again…

…Yet again the scriptures reveal nothing, so let’s give the press release a glance. Hella are a two-piece from Sacramento (that’s where the Deftones are from, innit?). Spencer Seim plays guitar – loudly – and Zach Hill bashes the drums – equally loudly. ‘The Devil Isn’t Red’, the band’s first album from what I can make out, was recorded live, with no overdubs or digital fiddling, by a guy called Tony at a studio called Retro Fit. BUT; is it any good!?

Yes and no. Whilst fans of the aforementioned Lightning Bolt, Pink and Brown, Quasi and the like will favour the two-piece set up, others may find the band’s purely one-dimensional approach hard to swallow. There’s no fault in the writing – it’s just that two-piece outfits can only explore so many avenues without spreading themselves horribly thin. Sometimes lush, and sometimes boisterously brash, ‘The Devil Isn’t Red’ is really worth the time and money of an open-minded sort, but if your idea of an alternative two-piece extends about as far as The White Stripes, you’re best off leaving records like this to people like myself; people with no concept of what constitutes a tune and what is actually just a load of noise, and who find ALL buttons hard to button (fat fingers y'see). After all, I have a girlfriend to annoy, and this does the trick nicely.