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Animal Alpha
“You Pay For The Whole Seat But You’ll Only Need The Edge”
(Racing Junior Records)

Holy crap, is it a chick or a dude?! With a backing crew looking like extras outta Blakes 7, Animal Alpha’s Agnete Kjolsrud clearly fancies herself as the female equivalent of Mr (Marilyn) Manson and AA have a mission to inject some new blood into the nu metal scene. With a vocal range from Die So Fluid esque power vox to tweety bird croons there’s no doubt this Norwegian quartet can play on the 9 tracks making up this second album (which must have the longest title in rock history - any takers?). However, despite being mixed in their home country, there’s absolutely nothing Norwegian (or European) about their sound. Having being produced Sylvia Massey (Smashing Pumpkins, Tool, System Of A Down etc) and mastered in LA by Dave Collins (Motley Crue, Madonna etc), AA seem to have followed the all too common path of taking local but marketable talent from across the globe, feeding it into the rock mainstream media mixer and packaging it out to the world - and AA are up there racing with the pack.

-Shan Siva