The Grates - Teeth Lost, Hearts Won

Rating:

* * *

Brisbane three-piece The Grates launch their sophomore album with a hiss and roar. Full of handclaps, chanting and drum rolls,

Burn Bridges

bursts to life, drawing listeners like moths to a flame. But the record soon starts to unravel, losing momentum.

Slower tracks like

The Sum of Every Part

and

The Fun in Every Start

try to reveal a softer, less frantic side to the band but simply serve to highlight how annoying Patience Hodgson's vocals can be as they strain to hit sickly sweet, high notes. The band are at their foot-stomping-best when they stick to the fiery rhythmic rock of

Burn Bridges

and

Aw Yeah

. But they have a tendency to take it too far, degenerating to noisy outbursts and incoherent wailing, as on

Earthquake

and

Not Today

, and the final third of the record falls apart completely, becoming distracting and disoriented.

The Grates have been compared to American punk rockers Be Your Own Pet but they lack the sassy and scathing lyrics to live up to the comparison, coming out with less than insightful commentary, such as "Blood is thick and piss is thin/ I'm full of one but I'm not sure which". Perhaps it's a blessing Hodgson squawks her words so much that most of the lyrics are indecipherable.

Joanna Hunkin