Queen Adreena - Live At The ICA
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Only a few months since the release of their third album The Butcher And The Butterfly, Queen Adreena are back with this live album and it unsurprisingly has almost the same collection of songs, which makes it a rather surprising release, particularly as there's a DVD of this show on the way.

Live At The ICA

However, there is no doubt that Katie Ann Garside and her posse are an energetic and passionate bunch of live performers and that comes shining through here.

What is rather less obvious is whether there was anyone at the ICA to hear it, with the crowd drowned out in the mix apart from some applause and cheering in between songs.

Even on the quieter moments in White Stripes-esque Join The Dots, there is nothing coming from the crowd, making it sound like a slightly more ragged version of the studio release, but that doesn't justify having to fork out to buy it again.

One of the few things we learn from Live At The ICA is that recent single FM Doll (Garside's take on the tragedy of seven-year-old American beauty pageant star Jon-Benet Ramsay who was sexually-assaulted and murdered in her own home) is actually called Fuck Me Doll. Quite why it can be listed as that on this release but not before is not obvious, but it's still a good song.

Therein lies the dilemma of this album as a whole, which is pretty good with plenty of very raw Grrl punk rock, but is still just not very necessary as it's really not that different from just listening to the studio versions of the songs, which are mostly all from The Butcher And The Butterfly. The DVD should be worth checking out, but this is only for completists...