The press release that accompanies 'Burn This' proudly states that, "Ubermanoeuvre are a five piece high-energy rock band based in South East London". As I used to live in the South East and had never previously heard of the band it was with some excitement that I quickly deposited their freshest offering into my CD player and got ready to be energised. 

Produced by Dave Chang (Stampin' Ground and 4ft Fingers) and Fat Rasputin and mastered at Abbey Road by Adam Nunn (Mogwai and Gary Numan), 'Burn This' opens with the title track, which has an electro style sound that goes into a promising guitar riff, followed by a dead slow breakdown before a 'form' of rapping takes precedence. I'm not immediately sold but I noted that the band have been compared to the likes of RATM, Faithless and Enter Shikari so I'm not expecting Pantera here and I certainly can detect where the band's high-energy feel is coming from.

This is followed by 'If I Were You', which is a rather catchy number and a little bit more on the rocky side of the band's musical gene pool of influences, of which this band seem to cover a lot of. It's not a bad thing to crossover so many genres, not by a long shot, but when the songs start to suffer as a result that concerns me.

Kicking me right back in the right direction is 'Call To Arms', which is very alive, with good vocals, there's a bit of a rap here too, but now I'm far more willing to actually get to the end of the album without turning off the CD player. 'Apathy Loves Company' quickly follows, then there's 'War' and 'Never Bring Your Girlfriend Flowers' which are all good tracks in themselves but this is starting to lose me again.

By the time I get to the end of track six I'm actually sweating every time I listen to 'Burn This'.  As I've come to realise, after years of being a journalist, that if I told you that this album was shit hot, it would probably sell a few and if I said it was not, it wouldn't but that depends on the fact that we all had the same tastes in music. Which we obviously don't, so I've purposely skipped off tracks seven to eleven so that you can go out and to buy this and make up your own minds. 

But wait, hold on a tick, track eleven is called 'Fear And Loathing In New Cross', that's my old home town, and I'm currently busy reading 'Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas' at the moment.  That's surely musical kismet if ever I saw it, so I'm hoping this is a complete turn around for me. ...And fuck yes, this is it, this is the track that will get Ubermanoeuvre recognised. I imagine Dr Gonzo would even trip out in places, he might go a bit insane with the rap breakdown but he would at least bob his head along and tap his foot to it!

I'm getting myself along to Ubermanoeuvre's Album Launch party at 229 Great Portland Street on Friday 19^th February, the day 'Burn This' also hits the racks and is available for digital download, and I'm certainly hoping I will have to add in a few footnotes to this review after I get to witness the guys much promised high-energy rock show. Here's to a night of 'Fear And Loathing' guys, so horns up and lets rock!

www.myspace.com/ubermanoeuvre