Skindred: Kill The Power (BMG)
Benji and the boyos bring the noise again with their fifth album,
with the dub infected title track starting things off nicely promising a
"Resident Evil attack" which it delivers along with a Kanye West
sample. This moves into Ruling Force which is heavy at the beginning but
breaks down into electro throughout. The dub (step) is here with Playing
With The Devil as is the rock with World's
On Fire and Ninja which is heavy as hell and very
tongue in cheek. So have the band created an album better than their
world beating effort Union
Black, the album that saw them elevated in status and even festival
headliners. In a word no, yes that album is good but is doesn't seem very
cohesive, yes the album has the reggae, ska and rock all fusing brilliantly
once again to create some unique rock/metal but it does start with a bang and
then burn out towards the end. The band have created to ballads with The Kids Are Right Now which is good but We Live does sound a bit too much like 30
seconds To Mars for my liking. The albums latter half just tends to fade out a
little bit towards the end with the duet Opened
Eyed being one of the better
tracks. Benji's voice is still cracking he can growl, shout, croon and rap
with the rhythm section of Pugsley and Goggin driving things along and the
guitar of Mikey Demus bringing the odd off kilter riffs. This is Skindred doing
what they do but yet again a studio album fails to capture the bands fierce
live performance, maybe one day an album will but Kill The Power is not that album, still it does
add a few more tracks to the Skindred showcase. 7/10
BlackWolf: The Hunt (Self Release)
BlackWolf fly the flak for real rock n roll, having witnessed
their stuff live a few times, and they have always impressed and with tours
supporting The Temperance Movement, The Union and Voodoo Six. Their EP was a
small slice of the bands talent so it was with great to hear they were working
on a full length debut. So The
Hunt has arrived and it's
pretty damn good. things start strong with the funky blues bluster of Mr Maker (the first single) which features
the bands trademark modern hard rock with Jason Cronin's riffs cranking out
like Acca Dacca on a very good day and John Greenhill's solos screeching and
crying over the songs with aplomb, things keep rocking through Keep Moving On, Moving Mountains before
things slow down with the laid back blues filled Zep alike Faith In Me. Ben Webb and
Thomas Lennox-Brown keep the rhythm fast and furious on tracks like Trouble with the Webb's bass providing the
anchor and Lennox-Brown's drums brimming with fury and lots of Cowbell! When
brought together with modern retro riffs and solos the instrumental part of
this band is pretty flawless so it takes a pretty special vocalist to finish
things off thankfully Scott Sharp has the pipes to do so equally soulful and
powerful thundering on Only
Said In Silence. Blackwolf are a band that has a lot of similarities to The
Answer (a band they tour with this year) with enough classic sounds to keep the
old-school pounding their fists and nodding their heads but has a distinctly
modern flavour too. This is a storming debut album that will (hopefully) set
BlackWolf on the path to greatness, bluesy, ballsy and rocking!! 9/10
Mustasch: Thank You For The Demon (Gain Music/Sony)
Mustasch are somewhat of an odd band hailing from Sweden they play
heavy stoner metal full of massive truck rolling riffs and huge shouted
choruses. I have always maintained that Mustasch sound like Metallica stuck in
their black album period and after the slow intro to Feared And Hated the riffs kick in with force, the
down stroking is prime Hetfield with Ralph Gyllenhammar driving the song with
both the rhythm guitar and his powerful vocals, the powerhouse drumming of new
boy Jejo Perkovic and the always rumbling bass of Mats Stam Johansson providing
the big metal riffage that David Johannesson can solo over. Like I said
Mustasch have always been a bit of an enigma merging stoner metal (Lowlife
Highlights) with doom (The Mauler), some hard rock and also a
weird electronic dance mix on the suitably named I Hate To Dance, to build their
sound before adding some intelligent lyrics and lots of classical backing
tracks that add an extra dimension to the tracks, see the title track. This
album is a marked improvement on their last album it sounds more like their
earlier works with lots of hard hitting songs that clobber you around the head
with their full pelt riffing, the tracks on this record make you want to raise
your fist in the air and moves you on All My Life. Mustasch
have again released a strong metal album that will be ignored en masse but for
those that seek it out will be rewarded. 8/10
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