It has been four years since the destroyer duo Comanechi released a full-length album; a follow-up to their explosive debut Crime Of Love is more than eagerly awaited. With their line-up broadened to a three piece (Charlie Heaton having joined on drums in 2012); You Owe Me Nothing But Love boasts a similarly expanded sensibility.
The fundamentals of Akiko Matsuura’s rock-solid backbeat and Simon Petrovich’s super powered riffs are wedded to a compositional maturity, bearing testimony to the years the band have spent plying their trade as a ferocious live outfit.
The glamorama stomp of ‘Love Is The Cure’ opens the album proper with a bang, a streamlined anthem in the making with Akiko’s vocal totally to the fore. Her strengths as a frontwoman are maximized by a set of lust-driven narratives splayed across heart-bursting rock dynamics. ‘Die For’ is a panicked punk thrash of sexual adoration, ’24 Hr Boyfriend’ a hysterically funny kiss-off to a fleeting sex hook-up.
The lipstick-smeared allure of Akiko’s “Keex” persona is at times so overpowering that she alone seems to personify the lyrics of the ageless Flipper classic ‘Sex Bomb’. (Relative) newcomer Charlie Heaton makes his presence felt on ‘Patsy’, a drowning, dirge-like epic with more than a hint of early Hole era intensity at its core. Its desperate cries of sex abuse, castration and family dysfunction make for a genuinely disturbing listen.
Elsewhere, the gnawing accessibility of the material displays another of the band’s finest attributes. The garage pop shimmer of ‘Major Move’ and ‘Dream of Love’ are proof that Comanechi are one of the best singles bands of recent times. Their direct, groove-laden attitude is as refreshing as it is seductive, with addictive choruses that deserve to be roared in stadiums. The subterranean quake of ‘Death Threat’ brings matters to a brilliantly doomy conclusion – their adoration of the legendary Electric Wizard happily hasn’t quite worn off yet. A fireball of fuzzed out sonics and erotomania, You Bring Me Nothing But Love is one of the best releases of the year so far.
