A friend of mine is a huge death metal fan.

All too often no matter whatever else we are talking about our conversation will eventually worm its way back to music when I will then get absolutely slaughtered for the more obvious commercial appeal of my musical tastes with all too many demands to listen to this amazing band called ‘Eagles of Death Metal’ and my response has always been the same -

“I like who I like and you are not going to change my mind.”

Now, of course, I add a few other less than charitable words to make my point but the number of times we have been through this same conversation I have now come to the point where I feel like I am almost literally bashing my head against the wall.

So the other day I was in a certain popular highstreet music store when I came upon Eagles of Death Metal’s ‘Heart On’ and resolved to give it a try (and shut my mate up!).

After completing my shop in the town I returned to the car and put the CD in for the long drive home to help me pass the time and, much as I hated to admit it to my friend, I really did like it for the simple reason that it was unlike anything that I had ever heard before.

Jesse Hughes and Josh Homme are strangely comedic in their performance as they proceed to seemingly ’send-up’ and celebrate alternative rock to such an extent that I soon found myself absent mindedly tapping my hands on the steering wheel along with the beat. The music is also strangely founded in blues with a low-fi fuzziness and oddball percussion that you certainly do not get with the other arties I enjoy like Snow Patrol and U2. In addition I could not help but smile at the lyrics that seemed to revel in odd stories of extremely tight pants and loose loving women that most men will only ever dream about as Hughes and Homme croon “We’re getting freaky in the shadows of the night”.

As a result, whilst I would not class myself as a fan, on the strength of ‘Heart On’ I would certainly call myself an interested listener and will be looking out for the next album.

Also, as long as we are on tangents. I couldn’t get to sleep and decided to go lurking round the world wide web for something to keep me occupied, turns out the Heroes Forum is not only a remarkable way to waste time but also fairly diverting…