Hometown: Wigan.
The lineup: Adam Bamford (guitar), Chris Veasey (vocals), Robert Warnes (bass), Stuart Robinson (drums).
The background: There is a bike made by Suzuki, the company that manufactures, among other things, superfast motorcycles, called the Hayabusa (Japanese for "peregrine falcon", a bird of prey), which is capable of accelerating from 0-60 in 2.8 seconds and has a top speed of around 190 miles per hour. In layman's terms, that means, for the price of a budget hatchback, you get the performance of a McLaren F1 or Bugatti Veyron. We're not sure where it stands vis a vis competition from its main rivals Yamaha and Kawasaki (Honda probably have other things on their mind right now than breaking the sound barrier, like making cars that drive in a straight line without falling apart), but until fairly recently the Hayabusa, a truly awesome machine, was the world's fastest standard production motorbike.
The Suzukis are a four-piece rock band from Wigan making a noise that, although there isn't the same sort of equipment to measure such things as velocity and acceleration in music as there is in the realm of hyper-quick two-wheeled transport, seem to relish the speed they achieve in their songs. Their debut single, Built In, and its companion track Back At the Factory, are hard, fast, driving rock'n'roll that make us think of Motörhead or the Deep Purple of Highway Star. That much this band have in common with their motorbike namesake – their brute force and sheer pace. What these Wigan lads don't have is state-of-the-art slickness and hi-tech grace. This is raw, rough stuff, so much so, in fact, that they've made primordial vigour part of their credo.
Their press release talks up their back-to-basics agenda, their "primal aggression" and "visceral power", and claims that the Suzukis are returning to rock's source to invoke the invigorating energy of the Stooges, Sex Pistols, Nirvana and all those other bands whose purpose it was to get rock back on track. From the label that brought us the Coral and the Zutons, the Suzukis see it as their job to shock us all out of our torpor and torpedo the complacent and bland with bursts of high-voltage rhythm'n'bruise. It's hard to decipher what the words are, but Built In is apparently a "scathing demolition of celebrity culture" while from its title we're guessing Back At the Factory sticks it to dead-end, mind-numbing nine-to-five employment. Singer Chris Veasey chews his words, recalling both fellow Wigan boy Richard Ashcroft and the controlled, compressed vitriol of the young Paul Weller. He appears to take his new position very seriously indeed, and you can well imagine him one day, faced with a sceptical journalist, carving something meaningful on his forearm with a blunt penknife. Musically, they're rudimentary, while lyrically they're almost comically rebellious, but if you like the idea of an angry northern bloke venting his spleen about God knows what over punky blasts of guitar-bass-drums, you'll love the Suzukis.
The buzz: "The anger and adrenalin, so lacking in many other bands, positively bursts from the speakers when listening to the Suzukis."
The truth: In the Suzuki pantheon, they're not quite in the GSX-R league. No, they're more of a Bandit, really.
Most likely to: Be angry at the world.
Least likely to: Change the world.
What to buy: Built In is released by Deltasonic on 22 March. The band's debut album will follow in May.
File next to: At the Drive-In, Deep Purple, Motörhead, the Cult.
Links: myspace.com/thesuzukis
Tomorrow's new band: Dum Dum Girls.
