OPINION

Premier: saved from the brink of receivership and oblivion by its own staff. Now launching a new generation of players with their popular APR kits. Meanwhile drummers want variety! Style! Something different! So Premier say OK and offer new thin snare and new fat one.

Fat snare looks like it'll scare residents two, maybe three streets away. A monster, Nine-inch-deep brass shell. Ten tuning lugs. Hefty die-cast rims. Badge says Heavy Rock. Can't find ear defenders but decide to risk it and give it a whack. Blimey. Can still hear myself thinking: boy, is this a quiet drum. Take off Studio batter head. Underneath innocent looking white head is clear laminate coating. This chokes volume. So do two felt strips (1in x ¼) which are glued inside shell, just inside brass rim flanges which have unfortunate kinks where joint is made. Whole shell also lined with laminated birch. This time jointing leaves visible gap. So all in all looks great on outside, not so clever inside.

Wood, felt and thick head (drum's, not Dunc's) is supposed to deaden sound for studio. But what studio and what year! OK for BBC session or Bee Gees record in '78. No beef there. But '87 is year when real drums bounce back. Who wants dead old Linn clop or fizzy Simmons boing? Let it ring, resonate, do its thing.

Thin snare looks old-fashioned, like toy, but sounds like Colt 45. Dunc frightened but impressed. Love the Extra Sensitive batter. Picks up everything your stick says and passes it on to snares. Fab. Love the seamless aluminium shell. Hoops ordinaire but what rimshots! Nay gripes about snare mechanism either. Same on both drums. Same on 2000 I bought in '71. Good then and good now. Could do with fewer snares on strand to balance overall sound better, but Premier's smallest is a 20. These are 24s. Never mind. This drum looks fun and sounds brill.

DECISION

Heavy Rock Nine sounds more tame and inflexible than it looks. Try thinner batter head and dump felt strips to combat lack of crack and thrill factor. But don't expect to banish mellow (word of deliberately ironic meaning) tone altogether. And it's heavy (weight).

Piccolo looks ripe for school perc band, but God help any headbanger rash enough to get within yards of it at gig. Great for rockabilly, jazz, Level 42, James Brown. You name it. Simple? Faultless? Value for Money? Yep.