Juliette and the Licks first album, 2004’s ‘Like a Bolt of Lightning’, saw the band arrive in a flash and on a ‘Riding Giants’-size wave of hype. Many - myself included - were not overly impressed by the de rigeur garage sound of the music and listening to said album with high hopes of finding some actual tunes to latch onto, were sorely dissapointed. Not to mention the ever present reek of ‘celebrity vanity project’ that hangs over such endevours. Juliette’s wild-girl, Iggy Pop-wannabe act on stage whilst her band of cobbled together ‘session’ dudes hung in the shadows didn’t help matters much. PR and hype were in full overdrive and column inches spread from the music press to the broadsheet supplements, creating a talent-to-hype ratio that looked out of balance. New single Hot Kiss (and album ‘Four on the Floor’) is leant credibility by the addition of Dave Grohl on the drums who, as always, delivers the goods in pounding, metronome-tight style. It is this added boom and rumble in the rhythm section, combined with the song-writing suss of the band’s first stable line up since their inception that gives Hot Kiss more conviction and gusto than the ‘Licks previous efforts. Their brand of fired up garage rock works better this time out with riffs given enough space to breathe and to set toes tapping and heads nodding. Juliette’s gruff vocal delivery has enough sass and swagger that when she snarls about being a beach ball getting thrown against a wall you can feel her sweaty-leotarded charm working on you. The proof of this pudding will be in the quality of ‘Four on the Floor’ as a whole album – if her record company are canny enough they should be able to sell it to the mainstream fans of Jet/Zutons/Kings of Leon etc. As a catchy 2 minute rocker though, I’ve got to admint to being pleasantly surprised by this little ditty and you’d be hard pushed not to too.