Split Dogs are a band we’ve followed since we began, one of the first acts we featured, and a band we’ve consistently championed as they grow bigger and more dangerous. Nice N’ Rough is their third album and comfortably their best, as you can hear years of relentless touring forging this Bristol four-piece into an extremely well-oiled machine.

The title is slightly misleading, as the band has never sounded more like a unit. There’s no dynamic range whatsoever, with everything cranked to ten for the entire duration, no quiet moments, no breathing space, and every dial turned to maximum like Lemmy Kilmister. Split Dogs are ferociously tight, bursting onto the scene as a fast and raw punk band with short, sharp songs perfectly suited to a sweaty room. On Nice N’ Rough they’re less of a punk band and more of a big stage rock and roll act.

The song structures are grander and the pace more varied, with boogie-woogie piano, harmonica and massive hand claps designed for much bigger stages. Be Somebody opens with triumphant, defiant energy before Born Too Loose delivers their classic lightning pace. Speed Demon is where the classic heavy metal influence is most fully embodied, and there’s a moment in Get The Look among the crashing noise where Harry lets out a scream that’s simultaneously completely wild and perfectly in key. Shake Sum Action is a two minute boogie-woogie that’s done and dusted before you know it, and Rock ‘N’ Roll Business has a piano line with enormous attitude and the spirit of Lemmy running through everything.

Mama Said could have been written in the seventies, and Suffer is an absolutely slamming single built around Harry’s most impressive vocal performance on the whole record. It’s a song about being wronged rather than getting revenge, acting as catharsis for an awful experience, and then Power Out closes everything out with the most cohesive song Split Dogs have ever put on record. The drums, bass, guitar and Harry’s voice are all so rhythmically in tune with one another that the chorus, built on a series of perfectly synchronised punched and whacked accented hits, slams with the kind of intuition that can only be developed through years of needing to be reliable every single night on the road.

We said from the beginning that Split Dogs were going to keep getting better. Watching them in front of audiences makes it look inevitable, and they’ve evolved from a punk band into something more leathery and heavy metal. The songwriting on Nice N’ Rough feels more purposeful and direct than before, with broad and deep topics. Be Somebody is empowering, Suffer is pained, and Born Too Loose is feral, each song picking an emotion and running with it. The band themselves are a true unit of four people trying to make the chunkiest possible racket together rather than individually showing off, and while Mil Martinez gets his moments of flash guitar he’s always working in service of sounding enormous and cohesive.

Venn Records have a flagship act on their hands. Modern developments in rock music are simply not of interest to Split Dogs, combining the rough volume of early heavy metal with the pace and attack of nineties skate punk, and they could easily keep these songs on the road for years without anyone getting bored.