Tijuana Bibles are an alternative rock band formed in a town just outside Glasgow called Coatbridge (population 43,950).

Their incendiary live shows have garnered them quite a following but the release of Free Milk, their debut album should bring them more attention, more praise, more followers, and rightly so.

It's is an album which, like Brexit, was ‘oven ready’ before lockdown but now has been released on an unsuspecting public fully cooked and further marinaded in post COVID neuroses. It's consistently unsettling, multi layered and one hell of a listen. Fans of Interpol, Editors and QOTSA won't be disappointed, fans of Arctic Monkeys will find moments to adore too.

Starting with the angry attack of ‘Stateless’, ‘Pariah’ and ‘Three is A Cult’, the tone seems set but then ‘The Wave’ comes with a jolt. The discordant chorus and sweeping soundscape take us somewhere else - a destination still just as aggressively triumphant but in a different, more nuanced way. ‘Architect’ is an alt/indie track but with added grunt, and the intensity doesn't let up one bit through the middle order, ‘Human Touch’ being a stand out for me. There's a darkness that runs through it like crippling anxiety, after all what could be more human?

Tijuana Bibles are relentlessly authentic and should be lauded for it. There's no X Factor gloss here, in fact there's still strange fruit hanging in the trees. With too many great tracks to list from the electronic tinged zombie Elvis of ‘Mothman’ right up to the terrifying claustrophobic mania of ‘Pill’ it is an album that will leave you breathless.

You sense that it's a record that will only improve in a live setting even though the production is first class. Throughout, the clarity, distortion and even fragments of silence when required are all razor sharp and especially on Mothman and The Wave add to the end result. A special mention to whoever chose the track order, listening to it as a whole, in order, takes you on quite a journey and leaves you on a cliffhanger. 

Top notch release, looking forward to the follow up already.

Words by Rich Dunn