Nine Lives – Cutthroat Friends (2021)
Fusing the sounds of Queens of the Stone Age, Arcade Fire and Nirvana, Cardiff-based duo Nine Lives is a bundle of gritty, raw and hard-hitting noise. While the project is almost two years old, the garage rockers are still up and coming but they have made their way through the blogosphere. Capturing critics on A&R Factory, Home Cooking Share, iHeart Radio and several podcasts/playlists, Nine Lives is reaching people on an international scale. We have the honour of reviewing their debut single ‘Cutthroat Friends’.
Describing themselves as a “noisy two-piece posting as a three-piece with a huge and heavy, rough and ready sound”, the pair are louder than life. Using a combination of dynamic guitars, pounding drums and an array of amplifiers to take on the sound of a second guitarist, Nine Lives plunge you into a whirlpool of sound with ‘Cutthroat Friends’. Yet, while the melody represents turbulent sonic waves, there is a flowing harmony within the brash garage rock.
Highly reminiscent of Arctic Monkeys, Nine Lives use an abrupt delivery to add a raw attitude to their music. As with Meg White, Hero Fancett works the drums while Topher Hughes smashes the guitar with ease similar to Jack White. While there is a similarity in the overall tune, it is Hughes’s execution of blunt lyricism that adds an extra grungy meets metal edge to the song. Oddly enough, while there is a painful brusqueness to the vocal delivery ‘Cutthroat Friends’ is toe-tappingly smooth and hypnotic.
In addition to the single, Nine Lives released an official music video for ‘Cutthroat Friends’. While I was not able to view the video in its entirety, due to the strobe effects, what I saw was rather intriguing. Cleverly using a black and white texture showing Hughes and Fancett playing their instruments, Nine Lives add a grimy visual element to ‘Cutthroat Friends’. As I said, I wasn’t able to watch the majority of the video (pretty much all of it), but I do think this was a beautiful representation of Nine Lives music and style.
VIEW AT OWN DISCRETION.
For more from Nine Lives check out their official website, Facebook, Instagram and Spotify.
