Wolfmother: Dimension

Remember ROCK? Remember when the word existed devoid of prefixes, and was recognized solely as a tag for heads-down, full-on riffing? Aussie amplifier worshippers Wolfmother do, and if you let them have their way with you they will make sure you don't forget again.

From vocalist Andrew Stockdale's opening shriek ’Dimension’ is a mammoth of a track, with the passion of Alan Smith, the flair of Ronaldo and the hair of Ji-Sung Park, although admittedly it also has the intelligence of Wayne Rooney and is about as ugly.

Musically several nods are given to Tony Iommi and Lemmy, and the line “Purple Haze up in the sky” sums up Stockdale’s vocal inspiration. But Wolfmother aren’t ones to bore with pretentious proclamations of myriad influences; their music is direct and unashamedly ‘uncool’, which of course in these days of irony makes it cooler than anything else.

On the Sabbath God rested and, from a direct worship of the ‘Sabbath, Wolfmother have unleashed a high-octane rocker that, for all its by-the-numbers riffery, sounds fresher than the majority of its genre-crossing, boundary pushing competitors.