If you’re stumbling around the place looking for some jumbo, godzilla-sized, magniloquent tunes, then may we point you in the direction of Pigeon Wigs debut mini-album ‘Rock By Numbers’, you lucky, lucky thing? After delivering a string of psychedelic blues rock monoliths with singles ‘Near The Knuckle’, ‘Death Of A King’, ‘Hold Up!’ and ‘Radiation Blues’, the Cardiff retro-hellions have plunged deep to the depths of their 60s soused souls and come up for air with a collection of dynamite bangers that boldly boast their influences.
Written and recorded before songwriting partnership Harry Franklin-Williams and Louis Jugessur had even got their five-piece mob onto the Welsh Club stage yet, the riffs are potent, the melodies are resplendent and the Stones, Lennon and Hendrix wails are fully intact. Nothing at all about this sounds like a group in their infancy.
Although the contents of the record’s Side A mostly feel like old pals by now, aside from flamboyantly loping newbie ‘Heavy Low’, the second half boasts a force with a hefty repository of ideas ready to ransack, whether it’s Americana-infused ‘War Torn Warriors’, the Beatles pageantry of ‘Come Of Age’, the ecstatically outrageous drum rolls and bombast of ‘Going Nowhere’ or the unexpectedly vulnerable closers – violin mottled ‘You Play Me’ and gentle piano-led croon ‘Epilogue 6’.
As the micro-LP’s title explicitly announces, this may be ‘Rock By Numbers’, but when those numbers add up to some insanely addictive, psych-pop anthems, we’re all in for a multitude of incendiary treats.
You can find ‘Rock By Numbers’ on all the streaming platforms right now, released via Clwb Music. Give it a listen this very second, if you like, using the extremely convenient Spotify link below: