This is a review of "The Electric Press" recorded by The Noise. The review was written by Sam Saunders in 2003.

This is very primitive guitar rock with a swagger and attitude that some people are just going to love. Now that the big names are in care homes, graveyards, arenas and crap reality TV shows, local live audiences want something big dumb and meaty to shake their heads at. The Noise are happy to oblige. Basic all the way down the line, the most enjoyable bits are the twin guitar solos that (I guess) Chris Dover won't carry off in live performance. But he does play with conviction and authority and he does have echoes of Jimmy Page that sound genuinely bluesy and rocking. All the rest stay close to the centre of mainstream metal rock tradition and give no cause for complaint.

Ryan Mallinson on vocals does sound like the tuneful, but slightly awkward teenager that he has every right to be. The words he gets to sing are far from great, but they do the job of getting from one end of each song to the end, keeping out of the way of the central guitar hero figure. Duty forces me to report that "She wears no clothes, that's the way it goes, she's my problem" is the chorus in "Call Girl".

Name apart, The Noise make no effort at all to be cool or fashionable. My demo CD-R just screams "home made", right down to the Grocer's apostrophe in the title of "She Say's" and the sellotaped slip of paper on the front announcing the bog standard Rock white text on black background web site with underexposed and poorly framed photos of the band sitting on the pub bench seat.

Tile track "The Electric Press" has a horrible distortion on parts of the vocal track which serve no purpose that I can work out. Like the other three tracks it's built around a bluesy guitar riff that holds everything together.

So. A distinctive guitar sound and a workmanlike but old fashioned band around it. First track "You Love My Rock 'N Roll" sets out the manifesto and the final track "She Says" has a rather cute "band shout" response that could be worked up into a real signature effect and used in other places. They certainly need to do more to put a noticeable distance between themselves and the other entry level bands doing very similar music.