“You sniff it, it lasts for 30 seconds and then you have a headache - and that's what we're like!”
That’s how Amy Taylor recently made the link between the drug amyl nitrate and the name of her high speed garage rock band.
Crude and unfashionable like the mullet haircuts they sport, the Melbourne-based quartet are also enormous fun on rocket-powered songs such as Some Mutts (Can’t Be Muzzled) and Balaclava Lover Boogie. A fearsome live reputation led to them being nominated alongside Idles and Jorja Smith for Best Breakthrough Act at last year’s Q Awards, and next weekend sees them sharing a bill with The Strokes, The Raconteurs and Interpol at the All Points East Festival in Victoria Park.
At the same time they’ll release a self-titled debut album on Rough Trade Records, joining a rock and roll lineage that includes The Strokes, The Libertines and The Smiths.
Taylor is an obvious star, howling in an unmistakable Aussie accent like Courtney Barnett if she’d gone a bit deaf and had to shout everything. Bigger gigs, if not longer ones, are surely on the way.
May 25, All Points East, Victoria Park, E3. allpointseastfestival.com