Ah, those halcyon days of July, 2003! All right, it was only a month ago, but a lot's happened since then. Way back then, a band called The Penance took to the Band Stage of the Gloucester Festival and electrified the place.

Theirs is a brand of heavy (but occasionally witty) rock, verging on the heavy metal side of things. And now the band's E.P. is available, which can only be a good thing.

In Pursuit of Marilyn Manson

First up comes "Lost", one of The Penance's favourite songs - and it's easy to see why. The song is a well focussed, perfectly formed account of an ill focussed and imperfectly formed night out. Sam Lee's lyrics fly past you at a million miles an hour leaving you lost in a sea of chugging bass lines and chords.

The song was inspired by a the band's trip to a Marilyn Manson gig in Bristol. They got lost, asked a drunk the way and got even more lost. It's hardly the deepest in philosophical thought, but it's still an exciting rush of rock and roll.

The Penance would like to think that they sound like Nirvana. That may be the case, and elsewhere they do, but here there is more than a passing nod to Hole's "Celebrity Skin". Not a bad thing by any means.

This is the kind of song you can imagine Buffy and co. dancing to in The Bronze between vampire slayings. No chance of that actually happening now that "Buffy" has ceased to be, but a man can dream.

Girl Trouble

The next song along is called "Pessimist Sadist". Written about a girl who irritated Sam, the writer of most of The Penance's cannon, this song is bilious in the extreme. With screeching guitars and feedback worthy of the Manic Street Preachers at their Generation Terrorists best, Sam's vocals are a frenzied attack on an unnamed girl.

If you thought that Murdoc had girl trouble, you ain't seen nothing yet. Dino T may have wondered why his girl left him, but at least he didn't threaten to cut off her head with a saw! Which is exactly what The Penance do. Nice.

Sam Lee may seem a little hypocritical calling this poor woman a "psycho bitch", but a bit of over the top adolescent whining never did anyone any harm - assuming she's still in one piece, that is.

Questions, Questions, Questions

Adolescent whining is the main theme of the next song, "What Does It Matter". It's an adolescent plea for answers. The only problem is, no one is sure what the questions are. While it clear that The Penance are trying to emulate the style of bands like Nirvana, they are unable to succeed because they haven't got the amount of rage inside them necessary to drive a genius like Kurt Cobain.

This both a good and bad thing. Good because we are unlikely to have a suicide on our hands, but bad because, without such anger, their songs may appear artificial.

"What Does It Matter?" does, however, remain a good song. Musically, it carries its weight with the other two, and even within the struggling lyrics, it is possible to see a poet emerging.

Comparisons with a legendary band such as Nirvana may be a little unfair (particularly when the Sam and co. claim to have their own sound), but, given time, such resemblances may not seem as strange as they do now.

06/08/03 - First published on www.bbc.co.uk/gloucestershire on this link