Track: Steel Trees – Attack of the Stoner Zombie Killer Kids (plus Tour news)

Picture the scene, the Mafia family boxing day celebrations and the brethren gathered from the four corners of the earth (well, Sheffield and London). Various offspring running riot, off their heads on chocolate. All adult males asleep in armchairs with jauntily angled paper hats on. And me, fearlessly tackling my second bottle of red. It’s at this point, while I’m slightly bleary-eyed and vulnerable, that Big Brother Mafia suggests I might like to contribute to the backseat blog. As a begrudging fan of said blog (he’s my brother, being nice about him is unnatural) and a London dweller with a hankering for the north, it seemed like an excellent idea. Fast forward to last week and an email innocently dropped into my inbox containing my first assignments…

I have two real issues with this. 1 – ‘assignments’ suggests that I am somehow now working for Big Brother. And anyone with any sort of sibling will understand that this is not acceptable. 2 – Big Brother saw fit to take me completely out of my comfort zone by asking me to write something on the new Steel Trees single ‘Attack of the Stoner Zombie Killer Kids’.

This is the same Big Brother who spent hours with me on childhood car journeys to the seaside listening to me singing earnestly along to New Kids On The Block. Sheffield trio Steel Trees have themselves described their sound as: “Ugly, loud, rocky, spotty, smelly, fuzzy, punky, spunky, Queens Of The Nirv-Fu-Manchu-Sabbath-Rage-age.” Joey Mcintyre they are not.

Steel Trees – Stoner Zombie Killer Kids
But, not one to be intimidated (growing up as the very much younger sister to two Big Brother Mafias made sure of that), off I skip to give them a listen. And pleasantly surprised I was. Title track ‘Stoner Zombie Killer Kids’ definitely has an air of Queens of the Stoneage about it and the Steel Trees know how to keep it interesting without thrashing it from start to finish. ‘Sick’ shows off some impressive skills from the boys and is reminiscent of Nirvana on form – and how can that be anything other than great?

The press has said that to see Steel Trees in their full glory you have to see them live. I haven’t had that pleasure but watching the live set of ‘Sucker Punch’ on their website leaves me in no doubt that live is probably their forte. Luckily for us they are on tour very soon, dates all available on the website www.steeltrees.co.uk.
This album is no holds barred, no excuses, in your face, rock punk filth. It makes me want to be jumping up and down holding a can of slightly warm red stripe in a venue with black walls while I get splashed with other people’s sweat. They’re playing Camden in February so I may just get my chance.