Q Magazine:

When the crowds gathered for the Phoenix Festival in 1994, the end of the world was apparently just behind their collective shoulders. In the end an expolding fireball failed to dent the weekend and instead all that occurred was the less than cosmic finale of The Wonder Stuff, who bowed out on a Black Country-heavy bill that also included Ned's Atomic Dustbin. Ther Stuffies' singer and hyperactive mouthpiece, Miles Hunt, re-surfaced slickly as a VJ on MTV's 120 Minutes, until the ex-Jam afn was given a sharp word of encouragement from Paul Weller himself, who told Hunt to get off his backside and put a band together.

While the other members of Wonder Stuff joined forces with the manic Ange Doolittle from Eat to form Weknowwhereyoulive, Hunt formed his own splenetic response. Vent forces all the songs into a taut, metallic style, thanks to the razorblade dynamics of former Nirvana cohort, producer Steve Albini. The album is pure back-to-wall invective, enlivened by some scratchy funkiness reminiscent of Gang Of Four and the odd Frippism in the angular guitars. There are no Britpop knees-up - the Stuffies having gathered around the old joanna long before Blur - and at it's worst, Hunt's dense, muddy guitar sounds follow the be-suited uniform angst of Tin Machine into a dead end of mutant squeals and grungey feedback.

Nevertheless, there's a sense of urgency in the clipped, frantic riffs of Correctional that twists around the thumpy drums. Bruised, slashed melodies also tumble around tempo changes on Fits And Starts and the album's standout track, Easy To Talk, which is all grey macs and '70s new wave-isms in its earnestly indie spirit. Bowie's hollow romanticism, circa Low, also hovers over the track in its numbed, stark affectations. A frazzled Hendrix riff punches through the skintight aural upholstery on Kising The Mirror, which opens with the line "Ultimately I will be whatever it is you invent me to be". The song maintains the narcissistic self-conciousness suggested by Easy To Talk, but this time slaps a bit of lippy on and snigs itself. "Picture me on top of the girl where all the love that I give out is for me", sings Hunt, acting the ego-idiot. All this and mutated Kraftwerkian trip-hop interludes add up to a fat-free album that keeps Brummie meat and potatoes rock firmly at arms length.

Q Rating. * * *

Review by Steve Malins.