Armellodie Records is stoked to present the return of Scottish guitar slingers Le Reno Amps, with their simmering new album Appetite brought to the boil on Monday 18th April 2011. 

Born of sorrow in the Highlands of Scotland, Le Reno Amps have been tugging at heartstrings and assaulting eardrums with their taut melodies, close harmonies and sharp sardonic lyrics for some time now. Always indifferent to the current musical fashion, Le Reno Amps don't buck trends, they aim to start them. 

Following on from 2007s downbeat but (rightly) praised So For Your Thrills, and the energetic, hard-rocking glory of 2009s Tear It Open, Le Reno Amps aka Scott Maple and Al Nero have been gifted with the wonderful ability to conduct their business within an assorted intricacy of genres. A 'lazy-Sunday' reviewer's worst nightmare, their song-writing has always been impossible to pigeonhole, being an unashamedly upbeat and melody-strewn rampage of aggressive guitar pop, with flecks of rockabilly, country, mariachi, blues and punk glittering through. On Appetite it’s comforting to see they haven’t lost this aesthetic.

From the foot-down new wave of This One’s Not Waiting, exorcising old ghosts and long-standing grudges in a spiky and raucous fashion, Al Nero’s importunate vocal delivers in spades, “Who did what and what to whom, who stabbed you in the back and stitched you up too, who’s scared of the ghost that lost its spook?”. The knife-edge witticisms and heart-on-sleeve honesty continue with Bad Blood, with tremolo guitars, and muted trumpets telling the story of a love worn-out, the sincerity of the subject contrasts with some wry lyric-writing - “I’m fed up living in a shadow where my only appointment is my own disappointment” – which ensures the song stays well away from sugar-coated aloofness. 

Le Reno Amps idiosyncratic sense of song, and their playful ideas about making lo-fi production come to life are none more apparent than on Never Be Alone.  A Tom Waits-meets-Tim Burton stramash, eerie piano and pounding drums lay the path for Scott Maple’s unhinged vocal and a musical-like choral accompaniment.  Unnerving as it is, there's goofiness in the air too with pizzicato guitars and ripples of harpsichord lending an ineffable magic to the aural landscape.

Erratic yet controlled, Saturation Day returns the modus operandi to the band’s punk-rock leanings, a glorious mess of twanging guitars and bellowed harmonies with an enviable knack for melody. 

Somewhat paradoxically, this is a strangely angry wee record. It rocks, bangs, thumps and riffs with delight, but the songs strain themselves against barely contained fury, heartbreak, bitterness and sleaze.

There is sadness too, like on the Caledonian country swinging Sinners, a remarkably sincere articulation of hopes dashed on the rocks of circumstance.

But even in its bleakest lyric or saddest melody, the broad grin of catharsis is always apparent. “Why am I still alive?" pleads Scott Maple on I’m Alive with a knowing wink, a song that casts it’s daggers at the charlatans and lost sheep occupying our TV sets come a Saturday night, “if talent talks, bullshit amazes” Maple concedes.

As Le Reno Amps disregard fashion, they also have no time for the constraints of genre. The songs romp gleefully through the entire histories of rock, indie, metal and country. Cottonmouth Rock marries intelligent wordplay with an emotional heft, the balance between intensity and sensitivity is perfect, a vicious and raw holler through the drink addled thoughts of a man cuckolded. It’s as good a break up song as any with Al Nero’s frenzied vocal forcing the listener into the same cheated mindset as our protagonist, whilst generously acknowledging the frequency of its own story. When the rumbling drums make way for a punch-the-air guitar solo you know this band has absolutely no shame in their musical loves. There is as much Gainsbourg as there is Metallica, but always with Le Reno Amps own sense of playful joie de vivre and remarkable cohesion.

Having once been described as “the Everly Brothers teaming up with The Pixies, whilst Tom Waits and Weezer try and get a word in” (Vic Galloway, BBC Radio Scotland), it’s easy to see why Le Reno Amps music has such a broad appeal. The more you dig the more layers you unravel and the more dimensions you find to each song. The hidden melodies, the arrangements, the love-lorn, log cabin kitchen sink narratives. Le Reno Amps mix all of this real life observation into something that can at times, be sad, funny, relaxing and invigorating all at once. These contradictions are easily identifiable on the whimsical piano-driven Weight, with its curious circus-like drums and musical-box bridge complementing a tale of a marriage, an oath, a promise that can’t be reneged on. As Scott Maple sings, “to have and to hold forever hereafter, think that was the day she last heard my laughter, I don’t understand and I don’t have the answer but I don’t give up on a friend”.

The over-arching feeling is one of big tunes backing up an underlying melancholy that is cosseted, cherished and wallowed in until it is just beginning to turn to a new day. Songs are sadness-tinged explorations, picking at the scabs of old emotional wounds set to jaunty tunes, none more so than on the borderline sociopathic You Must Remember, and the barn-storming, Stuck In Your Throat. Both songs boast deceptively uncomplicated melodies, with lyrics that deal with ordinary situations and insecurities, sorrowful yet sweet, uplifting, humorous and soulful, with some art-rock weirdness thrown in with fervent enthusiasm.

Self-confessed workaholics, on their previous record Tear It Open, Le Reno Amps crafted a video to accompany each song and were dutifully rewarded a Scottish Bafta nomination for their efforts. They also found the time to found rock’n’pop cavalry, Armellodie Records, which has quickly manifested into one of the most exciting independent labels in the UK.

On this occasion the guys set out to record Appetite alone, engineered and produced by Scott Maple, with some friends and label-mates dropping in to lend their enviable talents. Jason Sinclair (Cuddly Shark) played drums on several tracks, Mandy Clarke (Super Adventure Club) used her furious wee fingers to set down the bass-line to Cottonmouth Rock and Johny Lamb (Thirty Pounds of Bone) provided sprinkles of brass throughout.  Not to mention the considerable talents of Greg Barnes (First Charge of the Light Brigade) on keys and former Le Reno Amps bassist, Lindsey Scott providing the cello on Faded Star. Al Nero humbly quips, “We must stress that we’ve attempted to preserve, as closely as possible, the sound of the original recording but due to the high resolution of the Compact Disc and modern digital files, the limitations of the source musicians can at times be revealed”.

It all makes for a band unapologetically engaged in the joy of making music. They are the wide-eyed nephew that tugs your arm, laughing as you head towards a rollercoaster. Joyful and exuberant, Appetite carries you along on its own idiosyncratic tidal wave of good feeling. The closing track Faded Star seems to succinctly condense, distil and spit back out every theme, style and story from the rest of the album in its own unique way.

Le Reno Amps new album Appetite is released on Monday 18th April 2011. A limited version (cunningly named, Appetite for Construction) shall see the full album released alongside a free exclusive 6-track digital EP, Construction.  Construction is a collection of songs that were recorded during the album sessions but didn't make the final cut, Scott Maple explains, “Ok, there’s got to be some losers, but think of these songs as our “Buzz Aldrin” collection - Neil Armstrong may always usurp him, but for god's sake – he still walked on the fucking moon!”

The Construction EP is anything but the leftovers from the Appetite recording sessions and in its own right an unashamedly upbeat and melody-strewn rampage of aggressive guitar pop, with flecks of rockabilly, country, blues and punk glittering through. When asked to expand on the contents within Scott Maple clarifies;

"Imagine your favourite bands were pumped full of steroids before being cooped up together in a small zoo enclosure. Every day the zoo-keeper visits them and throws them cuts of high-quality steak which has been marinated in same-said steroids.  The bands go feral and fuck like bunnies until they produce offspring. Le Reno Amps sound like the music the zoo-keeper writes on her days off.  She volunteers once a week at the local Hospital's WRVS shop.  It isn't much but it gets her out of the house and things haven't been the same at home since her mother died.”

From the brash urgency of opener God Loves a Trier, popping like punk and reeking of the garage, Maple muses, “it happened once, it happened twice, I sometimes wonder when I’ll take my advice; the doctor’s in so let’s begin to get a handle on the state I am in”. It's a perfect attention-grabber, and Le Reno Amps knock out all its right angles with aplomb.

The band keeps the momentum up albeit with the dials turning to incorporate some lilting country on Had It Enough, 60s beat-pop on Cosmic Plane, and the drive-time rock of A Song About Loss. The playfulness of the arrangements can’t help but raise a smile. Gifted with the wonderful ability to conduct their business within an assorted intricacy of genres, the band provide a cohesive strand throughout with strapping melodies, beefed up crash chords and occasional, and most welcome, forays into Thin Lizzy-esque guitar harmony territory, it really is ear-tickling.

The EP draws to a close with When I’m 6/4 - a charmingly entitled instrumental in you guessed it, 6/4 timing - and the quaint acoustic pluck of North and South which Al Nero describes as, “Stagger Lee driving in the Australian outback, where he accidentally ran over the Littlest Hobo”.

Appetite for Construction is a full body of work, a tour de force of the emotional psyche; this is a glowing songbook of utterly unique, witty vignettes. Literate and versatile, it is stuffed full of inventiveness and performed with a straight face. As such it is a journey to be taken time and again.


Cottonmouth Rock

Born of sorrow in the Highlands of Scotland, Le Reno Amps have been tugging at heartstrings and assaulting eardrums with their taut melodies, close harmonies and sharp sardonic lyrics for some time now. Always indifferent to the current musical fashion, Le Reno Amps don't buck trends, they aim to start them. 

A 'lazy-Sunday' reviewer's worst nightmare, their song-writing has always been impossible to pigeonhole, being an unashamedly upbeat and melody-strewn rampage of aggressive guitar pop, with flecks of rockabilly, country, mariachi, blues and punk glittering through.
