If "Lick Lick" was released 35 years ago, the disc would mark a lost progressive rock opus and come complete with extensive liner notes on what happened to the band, alongside a couple of lost demos and an obscure clipping or two. Actually released last year however, even the genre doesn't fit as the "progressive rock" tag now implies slide rule-precision delivery, twenty minute solos and more movements than an incontinent chess player. The disc arrived with a note that states "Recommended if you like: MR. BUNGLE, FRANK ZAPPA" and a couple of others and this disc does capture a lot of the off-the-wall fun and willingness to experiment found especially in early seventies underground rock. It lurches from dirty, heavy sections through superbly hammy, glammy, avant-garde passages where keyboards will fight gamely against guitar whilst bass and drums have a go at taking the lead spot too. Early seventies progressive rock does make for a good reference when trying to describe the music, and like a lot of those bands it seems a reminder that sometimes they take chances and hit the spot, and other times miss the mark.

But when it works it works well. Opening track "The Bad Pet" comes over as a noughties version of ROXY MUSIC's art school rock, "One Of Us" thunders along as if SABBATH had come armed with a Hammond. There's a moment of pure FOCUS during "The Drinking & The Drunk" and a splendid twisted fairground feel to "Dirgy". Occasionally it works better than well - quite superbly in fact on "The Imprecationist" which merges ALICE COOPER's early garage rock and showmanship with the pomp of SWEET whilst adding a bit of early FLOYD craziness into the recipe to boot. However, there are moments when there is too much going on for the listener to keep up, although in admitting this was less of a problem when listening through headphones rather than in the car at rush-hour on the motorway - concentration is clearly the key to fulfillment here.

LICK LICK dares to be something different and as such it perhaps won't sit that well between LED and LYNYRD but rest assured, once you get into it it's more than worth the shelf space.

- Leslie

OFFICIAL SITE: myspace.com/teamlicklick

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