In these days when you can find just about any sort of music through the magic of the Internet, it’s surprisingly rare to come across a Rock band that not only is in complete mastery of its instruments, but also has a great singer and enough decent songs to be worth listening to. The most obvious example of this are the awesome Clutch, but where they have a slight Hardcore influence left over from their early days, newcomers Infernophonic look to the seventies for inspiration, drawing on both Classic Rock and Funk/Soul. This mainly comes out through vocalist Elaine Tuttle, whose main inspirations are clearly the likes of Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin – larger than life female vocalists with real power and range.

Forming the rest of the band are Kevin Bolembach, Pat Piegari and Ross Kantor on bass, guitar and drums respectively, and they all redefine tight musicianship, locking into a Funk-ridden groove throughout that’s impressively heavy and technical. You won’t find any Joss Stone-esque whining here; the band go for the throat, creating a danceable yet pounding sound that works incredibly well with Elaine’s vocals to create an album chock full of memorable songs. Opening with the (almost Stoner) Rock of Anyone Else, Elaine proves why she got the spot almost immediately, switching between styles flawlessly and making the high notes sound easy, whilst Pat lays down a variety of riffs and a great solo that’s sadly lacking from most Rock band’s repertoire these days.

The Clutchy blast of Say Whatcha Mean immediately follows, adding some Hammond organs to great effect, whilst Karmakaze is positively Zeppelinian. Most of the songs on the album are upbeat, almost anthemic, especially Take Aim, which could be a Soul protest song. Thank You takes a slower pace, and placed as it is in the centre of the tracklisting it breaks up the album nicely. Invisible Slaves soon brings things back on Funky track, however, and from then to finale Eyes Of The Jedi’s Rage Against The Machiney, Star-Wars meets self-help book Rock-Rap (no, I wish I was joking) there are few dips in quality – Yeah Yeah Yeah’s instrumental section especially great.

Spark It Up falls short of being incredible, as some of the songs could do with better hooks, and that rap finale is incredibly bad – if infuriatingly hard to forget. Still, they are talented indeed, and given a chance will be more than excellent in time. For the moment, Infernophonic are a very good band, and deserve time and attention from everybody.