Well, what a year its been. Italy's number one all-woman punk power trio SMALLTOWN TIGERS finished 2022 on a high after opening for The Damned on their 1976 reunion tour at the personal invitation of the band themselves. It can be a thankless task going on at opening time, but they turned up, locked in and left with a lot of new fans and friends. First item on the agenda for 2023 was the recording of their first full-length album, the follow-up to 2020s debut mini-album Five Things, which earned them plaudits across the globe from the likes of Classic Rock, Vive Le Rock, Maximum RocknRoll and I-94 Bar, plus airplay from BBC 6 Musics Steve Lamacq and Gideon Coe, The Undertones Mickey Bradley on BBC Radio Ulster and numerous others. But before they could hit the studio, The Damned came calling again, inviting them to join their spring Eurotrek, which saw the three surfer-girls from Rimini playing for the first time to audiences in France, Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands and Switzerland. Over Easter, Valli (vocals/bass), Monty (guitar) and Castel (drums) returned to LAmor Mio Non Muore studio in the town of Forli to record with the same team who chaperoned Five Things, producer Stiv Cantarelli and engineer Robi Villa (both, incidentally of punk-blues duo J.D. Hangover - Forli's answer to Suicide!). After three days toil, the ten tracks were mixed by Villa - "the best pair of ears in Emilia-Romagna" - before being sent once again to Detroit garage maven Jim Diamond (White Stripes, Dirtbombs, Von Bondies, etc) for mastering. If some of the songs on Crush On You sound familiar, it's because they've had plenty of time to roadtest them. Initially written remotely during the isolation of Covid, the girls began rehearsing and gigging them as soon as they were able, so songs like opener Meet Me In The City, Monster and the title track (and first single) were totally match-fit by the time the band hit the stage of Hammersmith Apollo on the first date of the Damned tour. Now fan favourites, they were joined on the girls' September UK mini-tour by the louche, swinging Dressed Right And Skinny and Maybe, sung by drummer Castel, while Valli's bass punches holes in the wall, and Monty steps up with an all-too-rare guitar solo. "It's just fascinating to watch these little compositions become real songs," says Valli. "It's like watching your kids grow up in a way, don't you think? After a lot of work, hours and hours in the studio doing take after take until you get it right, listening to the same song a hundred times this work came to an end and we can't wait to share it with the world." "Imagine the Ramones getting sand kicked in their faces by The Runaways at a beach party while Kurt and Courtney look on." NUZZ PROWLING WOLF