We’re all familiar with Seven Minutes in Heaven, right? It’s some sort of weird kissing game that cinema informs me was played by the cool kids at parties. You know, the sort of normie party you weren’t invited to, leaving you to sit at home, listening to the Misfits and scrawling Dead Kennedys logos over any and every available surface. Where are those kids now? Dunno, doing some boring job, I guess. Whatever.

‘Seven minutes in heaven’ is also a pretty apt description of the new EP by Detroit punx The Stools - the four songs that make up ‘Feelin’ Fine’ are over before you’ve had chance to blink, but hot damn, they’re good. They call themselves a ‘bluesy punk trio’, and fair enough - like their hometown forebears the MC5, they take the raw tools of rock’n’roll and dial up the speed, the intensity and the fury, resulting in a record that commands your attention, your adrenaline and your utter devotion.

Like their 2018 album ‘Q-Nails’, ‘Feelin’ Fine’ sashays in with a loose-hipped swagger and an audible commitment to getting your feet flying every which way, but this time they’ve had a relatively hi-fi makeover - opener ‘Can’t Feel Good’ is yer classic show-opener, going from a flurry of chords and cymbal wash into an ear-catching riff and bone-crunching rhythm section. Like X’s ‘Los Angeles’ as played by speed-addled 20-stone wrestlers, it mesmerises as much as it pulverises, while the joyously dumb ‘Rockpile’ might well be the most aggressive tribute to Nick Lowe’s old band. Or maybe not; it’s hard to make out the lyrics while I’m bouncing off the walls. Punkest use of slide guitar since The Gun Club? Sure, why not? It slays, I can tell you that much. All you really need to know is that The Stools rule, and you need this record.
Will Fitzpatrick