If you're not familiar with who Kamikaze Trio are, then don't be too surprised. Before I landed my hands on this album on a whim, I had no idea either. Apparently, their label thinks they're quite popular down in Melbourne, and they've toured to Adelaide a few times. More importantly, they've evidently managed to con Rocket Science guitarist Paul Mayberry into producing this, their debut album, which is probably the defining factor in why this album is such a success.

When I say "such a success", I'm speaking relatively, of course. It would be silly to say that "Danger Money" is an album on a par with, say, "Revolver". However, as an alt-rock/punk album, it does the job quite nicely, with the snarling vocals of Sam Agostino complimenting the jagged guitar and aggressive drumming quite nicely.

The first song on the album, Rumblefish gets things off to a good start, with a typically intense performance and some nice minimal guitar work, which gets the job done without being too flashy or over-the-top. Unfortunately, after this track, things start getting soft for a little while. It's never boring or dull, but I began to think that maybe this band was a one-song-wonder, and that they'd shoved that song at the front of their album, and backed it up with ten tracks of filler. The grinding cover of Coalminer's Song kept my interest alive, but it wasn't until I got to Enemy, with it's lyrics which are spat rather than sung, before I began to get back into the band. Get It Right, the ninth song on the album, was even better, laden with hooks and stop/start instrument work. The album petered out a little bit after that, but by that point, the band had already proven to me that they had some staying power.

Based on this effort, Kamikaze Trio are definitely a band with a future, and not just a bunch of hacks who only have an album out because they managed to con a reasonably famous musician into sponsoring it. It's not the best debut album that I've ever heard, and some of the middle section is a little soft in the songwriting stakes, but that can be forgiven, given that this is a debut album. Definitely a band to keep an eye on in the future.