Biters: Restless Hearts

Southern sleaze rockers fail to dish up the dirt

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Biters hail from Atlanta, Georgia, but their tatts’n’leather look is more 80s LA – think Mötley Crüe after a good scrub – while their sound is a modern take on power pop and glam rock.

Biters heavily praise the authenticity of rock’n’roll’s heyday, and claim to be bringing back real rock music, as emphasised in the nostalgic lyrics of 1975: ‘I wanna rock and roll all night/Like it’s 1975.’ Reckless Hearts doesn’t lack in catchy choruses and even has echoes of Cheap Trick, and you can imagine a boozed-up crowd belting out the chorus to Heart Full Of Rock And Roll.

The rest of the album continues this style, and though the songs are infectious, the steady stream of party anthems gets monotonous. It’s polished and squeaky clean, and when frontman Tuk belts: ‘I wanna smash my television,’ in Low Lives In High Definition, it’s hard not to cringe. Though not the raw and edgy rock stars they wish to emulate, Biters could break the mainstream.

Hannah May Kilroy

Hannah May Kilroy has been writing about music professionally for over a decade, covering everything from extreme metal to country. She was deputy editor at Prog magazine for over five years, and previously worked on the editorial teams at Terrorizer and Kerrang!. She currently works as the production editor for The Art Newspaper, and also writes for the Guardian, Classic Rock and Metal Hammer.