Reviews: Kris Barras Band, Exist, The Cosmic Dead, Junkyard Drive (Reviews By Matt Bladen & Rich Piva)

Kris Barras Band – Halo Effect (Earache Records) [Matt Bladen]

The career trajectory from Kris Barras has been meteoric. I first saw him while he was supporting the The Divine And Dirty album as part of my collaboration with the much missed RetroVibe Records in Cardiff. Since then though he has outstripped so many of the other blues rock revival artists out there in the UK scene. 

Fronting Supersonic Blues Machine and the impact of his previous albums Light It Up and Death Valley Paradise especially have seen him capturing the attention of Earache Records and Planet Rock. This has meant that he has been afforded opportunities that many bands would dream of an not only has he capitalised on them Kris and his band have evolved into an arena size heavy rock band that fans of Alter Bridge and Shinedown will devour. 

Kris has become a fantastic frontman, his voice powerful and gritty, carrying a melodic twinge but also bluesy guts, behind him are the firebrand band of Josiah J. Manning on guitar/co-writing/production, Billy Hammett on drums, and latest member Frazer Kerslake on bass, this foursome locked in for a year of touring in front of them, including a headline show at the prestigious Chepstow Castle, alongside Stone Broken, The Hot Damn!, and Dan Byrne, this summer, as their sole South Wales date so far. 

They’ll be playing quite a lot of this album I expect as it’s written for a live crowd, heavier than previous efforts, there’s rock, metal and also some prog, see Fall To Fly. Shifting the delivery to the 2000’s metalcore bands such as Trivium and BFMV, while keeping their strong hard rock hooks in the choruses. A song such as With You highlights this well, while Savages takes things back to moody modern rock with electronic percussion, as lead single Unbreakable goes balls out in showing the sound adjustment. 

Massive distorted riffs, weighty drums, colossal chorus and a solo to die for it’s the perfect way to show off this ‘new’ Kris Barras Band. Elsewhere on Halo Effect is the anthemic pacey Waste Away With Me, the emotive Secrets, Fear Of Letting Go is a radio anthem while Reflections highlights the progressive elements and the production skills on offer that makes this the most accomplished record of Barras’ career. 

It may be a long time since I saw that MMA fighter turned bluesman getting the first spotlights on him, but in that time he, and his band, have become future arena headliners, with Halo Effect being the album that will win him new fans of all musical backgrounds, not just the tried and tested Planet Rock faithful. 9/10

Exist – Hijacking The Zeitgeist (Prosthetic Records) [Matt Bladen]

It may only be seven tracks long and the longest run time is just over 6 minutes but Exist can definitely be classed as a prog metal band due to the sheer intensity and technicality of what they play within a mean run time of about 5 and a half minutes. 

One moment it’s stop-start tech death intensity, the next ambient post metal meandering, growled vocals segueing into clean harmonies. The concise approach was intentional on this fourth album to instil more of a collaborative approach to writing and focus on the songs themselves rather than just the traditional focus on the virtuosity that comes with so many tech death groups. 

Max Phelps (vocals/guitars) has done time with Cynic and there’s a lot of direct influence from that band here, The Mars Volta too was a name that crept into my head as I listened to Thief Of Joy (featuring Sanjay Kumar of Inferi), the dichotomy of Max and bassist Alex Weber’s vocals working well for lots of light and shade, Weber’s bass playing integral to One Degree Removed From Human, which shouts Fear Factory. 

The riffs taking a heavier turn on this album and Phelps has a foil in Charles Eron for the broader but more natural guitar style, looping and overdubbing giving way to tow players in unison. Eron also gives this album a lot of synths that paint ambient pictures over Exist’s more direct, more crushing sound. I talked about Max Weber’s bass, his rhythm section partner Brody Smith is a beast, just listen to the offbeat pattern he has on album closer Window To The All. 

Dealing with paranoia, conspiracies and all manner of existential horrors Hijacking The Zeigeist is never too clever for its own good and Exist are allowing their virtuoso playing to inform their song writing not overshadow it. 8/10

The Cosmic Dead - Infinite Peaks (Heavy Psych Sounds) [Rich Piva]

Glasgow’s The Cosmic Dead are an extremely prolific instrumental heavy psych rock band that are back to bend your mind once again on their nine full length record, Infinite Peaks. Album number nine (number 9…number 9…) continues the psych rock goodness the band has become known for, this time with two extended spaced-out tracks that are very cool but occasionally too long for those of us with short attention spans and/or not currently using any mind-altering substances.

The first track is Navigator # 9 (number 9…number 9…) and you know said navigator is lost in some kind of gigantic black hole with all sorts of strange images flashing before his eyes as his twenty-three-plus minute journey goes from rock to rock in his attempt to survive. The track is huge in every way and has an epic slow burn build that incorporates some killer psych guitar (of course) and a wall of heavy psych sounds (see what I did there?). 

This is certainly some mind-bending stuff and not for those looking for verse-chorus-verse. This one could have been done in parts, because at about the eight-minute mark things chill out a bit, giving the traveller a bit of a needed rest. It is a pretty extended rest, as the guitar doesn’t really start to spin again for a good six to seven minutes, making this song drag a bit, but when it kicks back in, look out, because not you incorporate some spacy Krautrock to the heavy psych goodness with very cool results. 

Track two is a bit shorter (20 minutes) and I think you know what you are in for with a song called Space Mountain. This is not the Space Mountain Ric Flair (WOOOOOOO - Ed) used to mention in his 1980s promos, but more of an actual space mountain on a distance alien planet that has never seen human life before. This one rips it up in parts and doubles down on the Hawkwind on even more drugs vibes you get from Infinite Peaks.

The Cosmic Dead are a fun and exciting band and Infinite Peaks lives up to that description. The playing is excellent and the band is as mind bending as ever. Track one drags a bit however and you really need to buckle in for this one, but overall this is another successful trip from The Cosmic Dead. 7/10

Junkyard Drive - Look At Me Now (Mighty Music) [Rich Piva]

I am pretty sure I could write the same review for the new album from Denmark rockers Junkyard Drive that I did for their 2022 release Electric Love. Why you say? Because these guys have a formula that they stick pretty close to that includes 80s hard rock/Sunset Strip/Hair Metal (go fuck yourself Eddie Trunk, I’ll use that term as much as I want, you gatekeeper you) with some modern, slick production. Sort of a less sleazy Buckcherry, that always has two or three really good songs and the rest that really don’t do too much for me. Here we are in 2024, and their new one, Look At Me Now, is here, and let’s just say meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Yeah, the fans of this band will be happy for exactly what I wrote above. Solid playing, some good songs, some healthy hard rock nostalgia, but nothing to far off their entire body of work. The opener, Somewhere To Hide is a pretty sweet track and Beauty Fool would have been a hit in 1986 for sure. I can even picture the video. Really though after four listens, I remember nothing else. Was it listenable? Sure. Do I need to go back to it? Nah. Does it sound like their other stuff? Very much so.

I was very tempted to just cut and paste my 2022 review and change the song names, but I am a professional, and instead you get me telling you the new Junkyard Drive will be a nice addition to their discography for their fans but really does nothing to convince someone on the outside who has not been blown away up to this point to hop on the train. Look At Me Now is more of what this band does, if you like that you will be happy, if not, you will probably be in mid territory, and should go listen to Law And Order’s album Rites Of Passage instead. 5/10