Artist: This Et Al
Title: “You've Driven For Miles And Not Remembered A Thing” (single)
By Conor Duffy

My love of all things loud and melodic is well-documented, or at least it should be. This Et Al's latest single, a limited-edition 7” due for release on October 3rd , is both loud and melodic, as well as utterly irresistible.

Lead track “You've Driven For Miles And Not Remembered A Thing” wastes no time, immediately blasting you with grinding walls of guitar, breaking down into a compelling headbanging beat. It's a song that thrives on its melodic elements. The band knows the power of pulling back so that you can push forward again and does not resort to volume for volume's sake. It's probably for this reason that I've been able to listen to the song five or six times today, and I still can't get enough of it. Vocalist Wu has a voice that sounds completely deranged and desperate, hidden as it is in the mix, and it complements the impressive soundscapes around it.

B-side “All You'll Ever Be Is A Dancer” is equally brilliant. While it doesn't carry the same overwhelming weight of “You've Driven For Miles…” it certainly isn't throwaway. On the contrary, it's a wonderfully frantic song, jumped up with enough adrenaline to carry it for its ninety second duration. While lesser bands might attempt to string such a track out for longer than is necessary, This Et Al know when a song is complete, and this proves just how much confidence they have in their work.

With favourable comparisons to Sonic Youth, Queens of the Stone Age and Mogwai, as well as a headlining set on the Lee Sounds Unsigned stage at this year's Leeds Festival, surely it won't be long until This Et Al are being proclaimed as the latest saviours of rock n' roll. Hopefully they'll escape the hype machine unscathed, because I certainly look forward to hearing these guys for a long time to come.

Picture from www.thisetal.com