Are these the UK’s most unsung scuzzmongers? With their crude grind and surf and their mean organ kitsch, if they aint, then they’re coming damn close.

The C33s have been featured before. Their singles ‘Big Winner‘ and ‘Harpurhey Hostility‘ have been shown off at house parties, stuck on friend’s playlists, and committed to Christmas gift mix tapes. Yes I still make cassettes for my nearest and dearest, and don’t reckon Home Taping Kills Music.

And now they arrive with ‘Benzodiac‘. It’s a retro thump tapestry of rock n’ roll garage that wrangles its way through its grit-fuelled afflictions and settles on dirt bound addiction. There’s a formula to The C33s, and for those who don’t know it by now, it’s a toxin sized hit of perverse Cramps-style twist, with a backbone of rhythm that throws up rough heat, and a tough dose of 60’s invasion.  

But each track that comes out takes a slant, takes a jerk and a lean in direction. Here we get treated to a Kinks vocal hook and a boil in the bag slab of cool 60’s Hammond. Those B-movies that run from ‘Green Slime‘ up to ‘Creepshow‘, there’s a hint of that schlock horror showing. And right at the centre, cutting up through the core, there’s a coarse blast of whit that exposes the grit of most of our kitchen sink living: Hand to mouth via whatever’s consumed, with all the good and the bad that goes with.

The C33s bury home truths and gristle in rattlesnake sun-blasted fuzz. ‘Benzodiac’ churns with a groove and kick from the moment it chimes through your tweeters.