Doomsday Outlaw - Damaged Goods (Republic Of Music) [Matt Bladen]
Third album, third time to shine and Doomsday Outlaw have seemingly grabbed the gauntlet, smashed it with a hammer and told everyone else to feck off as they now deserve to be spoken about with such leading lights of the NWOCR bands such as Rival Sons, The Temperance Movement (R.I.P) and the Answer as well as the bands that inspired them such as Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith and Free.
Signed to Republic Of Music for this new record they are always the band they threatened to become. Evolving from stoner riffers, into Southern rockers, Doomsday Outlaw are now firmly a blues based classic rock band playing rollicking rock n roll. Those influences of The Faces, Free et al shine brightly on If This Is The End, this records first showcase for the incredible vocals of Phil Poole, his soulful tones being one of the reasons I've loved Doomsday Outlaw for a good while now.
Here though he is at his most raw and honest the songs on this album are "filled with heartbreak and redemption" it's his catharsis from the last few years. COVID having put paid to their European tour, these lyrics and life lessons started to flow and Damaged Goods was born.
Tracks such as Make It Easy and Runaway surefire FM Radio hits which reminds me of the arena ready hits of Black Stone Cherry and Alter Bridge. Behind the vocals of Poole, the rest of the band; Alez and Rowan (guitars), Indy (bass) and Nic (drums) all stretch their muscles with some of the bands most impressive compositions yet. Doomsday Outlaw working with Chris D'Adda at Vale Studios and Dave Draper to bring this album to life.
It is bursting with life too, mainly Poole's life writ large on the page, but they make this record ring out, from the opening AC/DC-like apreggio on In Too Deep to the Midnight blues of The Little Things, Damaged Goods is the strongest collection of songs they have produced to date.
My Woman Comes On Strong is a full on blues rocker, which keeps that Southern swagger, drenched in Hammond organs and a strutting riff, as Nowhere Left To Hide again hints at bigger crowds and larger audiences with its blue collar grandiosity, while One More Sip has a regretful jollity that The Black Crowes have built their career on.
Having been building a avid following over there past few albums Doomsday Outlaw are one of the UKs best proponents of rock around. Much more than Damaged Goods, they're like precious stones; polished, rare and a wonder to behold. 9/10
The Winery Dogs – III (Three Dog Music LLC) [Simon Black]
I’m always a bit cautious when it comes to “supergroups”, on the grounds they’re rarely deserving of the term, given many are neither truly super or an actual group in the long term sense of the word. This isn’t helped when you have whole labels out there whose business model is about prefabricating bands from the well-known ashes of long gone acts and making up the numbers with Italian session musicians (you know who you are, Frontiers s.r.l.).
The Winery Dogs – III (Three Dog Music LLC) [Simon Black]
I’m always a bit cautious when it comes to “supergroups”, on the grounds they’re rarely deserving of the term, given many are neither truly super or an actual group in the long term sense of the word. This isn’t helped when you have whole labels out there whose business model is about prefabricating bands from the well-known ashes of long gone acts and making up the numbers with Italian session musicians (you know who you are, Frontiers s.r.l.).
For them to really qualify as a Supergroup then, they really need a line up where every member is a draw in their own right, and for the act to actually last beyond a one-off studio project into a sustained artistic unit that writes, records and tours - although they can be forgiven for not doing this constantly if their main projects are still on the go (Mike Portnoy wins this all on his own just for managing to juggle about 18 different Neil Morse projects in parallel). The Winery Dogs tick both of these boxes.
I picked up a copy of the debut self-titled album from The Winery Dogs back in 2013 on the strength of the pedigree alone and wasn’t disappointed. I somehow missed out on 2015’s Hot Streak, so coming back a decade later to album number three is an interesting experience. Messrs Kotzen, Sheehan and Portnoy are all old hands in every respect, and they all of them have enough projects on the go to not need to return to any one in particular but listening to III it’s immediately obvious that they do because it’s simply a joy to do so. Fortunately, dear reader, it’s a joy to listen to it when they do…
As always, the tunage is classic rock influenced, but with that bristling underbelly of restrained prog that can’t be avoided when players as technically gifted as Mike Portnoy and Billy Sheehan are, who let’s face it are going to struggle to pull their punches. Ritchie Kotzen should not be underestimated however, even if he is pulling double duties with vocals and guitar. Although many know him from his days in Poison, the fact that he was right alongside Sheehan in Mr Big means this is not a player without considerable talent in his own right, whose fluid guitar playing completely fools the ear into thinking that there are two players in their alternately weaving through the rhythm and lead parts. That’s not happening – it is just him, and when you focus down you can hear that it’s all individual lines without overdubs, making it all the more commendable for the faked restraint going on there.
What stands out most of all is the cohesiveness of their playing, despite the fact they are each bringing a multitude of stylistic influences to bear here. But where it stands loud and proud is the strengths of the songs themselves, which retain a beautiful, raw and thoroughly soulful edge throughout, although to be fair Kotzen’s gutsy vocals need to take yet more applause here. Sharp, yet loose; focused, yet raw – this is an album of contradictions bolted together that works really well and doesn’t really have a duff track on it. 9/10
I picked up a copy of the debut self-titled album from The Winery Dogs back in 2013 on the strength of the pedigree alone and wasn’t disappointed. I somehow missed out on 2015’s Hot Streak, so coming back a decade later to album number three is an interesting experience. Messrs Kotzen, Sheehan and Portnoy are all old hands in every respect, and they all of them have enough projects on the go to not need to return to any one in particular but listening to III it’s immediately obvious that they do because it’s simply a joy to do so. Fortunately, dear reader, it’s a joy to listen to it when they do…
As always, the tunage is classic rock influenced, but with that bristling underbelly of restrained prog that can’t be avoided when players as technically gifted as Mike Portnoy and Billy Sheehan are, who let’s face it are going to struggle to pull their punches. Ritchie Kotzen should not be underestimated however, even if he is pulling double duties with vocals and guitar. Although many know him from his days in Poison, the fact that he was right alongside Sheehan in Mr Big means this is not a player without considerable talent in his own right, whose fluid guitar playing completely fools the ear into thinking that there are two players in their alternately weaving through the rhythm and lead parts. That’s not happening – it is just him, and when you focus down you can hear that it’s all individual lines without overdubs, making it all the more commendable for the faked restraint going on there.
What stands out most of all is the cohesiveness of their playing, despite the fact they are each bringing a multitude of stylistic influences to bear here. But where it stands loud and proud is the strengths of the songs themselves, which retain a beautiful, raw and thoroughly soulful edge throughout, although to be fair Kotzen’s gutsy vocals need to take yet more applause here. Sharp, yet loose; focused, yet raw – this is an album of contradictions bolted together that works really well and doesn’t really have a duff track on it. 9/10
Jupiter Zeus - Frequency Prison (Self Released) [Rich Piva]
Australia trio Jupiter Zeus bring their take on psych stoner doom on their latest record Frequency Prison. It is an interesting listen, as I have spent a lot of time with this album and I am still not 100% sure how I feel about it. Let’s try to dig into this a bit together. Positives include the riffs, outlined on a track like Dystopia Nightmares. The vocals, but only sometimes. I love the reverb baritone during the clean signing parts, but can do without the cookie monster parts, which I am usually fine with in small doses in this kind of rock. I just find them unnecessary, as these guys are heavy without the guttural screams. But give me forty minutes of these guys playing a more straight-ahead alt metal/90s vibe record any day.
I mention forty minutes because that is about the time when I started to become fatigued with Frequency Prison. The hour plus run time is a bit much; I would have been happy with nine of the best tracks instead of the fourteen we got. But give me tracks like the 90s grunge leaning Stationary any day, which is catchy and may be my favorite track on this record. It sounds like a very early Screaming Trees track. This one will be with me for a while. A track like Dangerous Freedom is a double edged sword with the catchy as hell 90s alt melody and the unnecessary growls. But a track like It’s Not Happening sounds like it could have been on Children Of Nuggets. There is a consistently clash throughout all of Frequency Prison making it a very uneven listen.
Overall, Frequency Prison has its highs and lows. Give me a consistent record from Jupiter Zeus where they focus on the highs, they keep on task, and they self-edit, we would be looking at a next level album from the band. For this one, focus on tracks like Stationary and It’s Not Happening, where they focus on the 90s leaning, psych-tinged early Trees vibe that they execute extremely well. The record even sounds like it was recorded back then and released on SST, so if you dig that there are some great nuggets on Frequency Prison. 7/10
Cerbère - Cendre (Chien Noir) [David G]
Cendre the debut album from French sludge metallers Cerbère is a weird one. Three tracks clocking in at a total of 42 minutes this is a largely dirge-ridden affair and seemingly aiming for a sense of monolithic crawl, though it feels disjointed.
Cendre kicks off its eleven-minute trawl with feedback and lurching bass, an unsettling and drawn-out beginning to an unsettling and drawn-out track. The guitars lumber painfully and the drums smack and splash in a manner that seems diseased. The vocals, best described as background squawking, feel a little misplaced almost like something that fell off the Deathcrush EP into the wrong recording session. About two-thirds of the way in and suddenly there’s a sense of more purpose with a little stoner-ish verve thrown in and rounding off with a little jam solo.
Sale Chien begins with a more purposeful approach, cycling on a crunching riff that has some oomph to it. It’s more your traditional sludge style, with the overt leaning toward classic doom. That is until the final third of the track when things get kind of break down, the vocals return, the guitar becomes indecisive, is it going? Is it stopping? Is it staying overnight? Hard to tell.
Les Tours De Set is near 23 minutes, which feels particularly ambitious as to this point things haven’t particularly felt cohesive. Sure enough after the feedback stops a raunchy riff kicks in for the most upbeat section of the album, this section lasts a minute before it descends into a fuzzy mess, with the squawking over bass and feedback. By the time (12 minutes in) we have a rough approximation of what I imagine Mogwai would sound like doing drone, which elicits intrigue. The final eight minutes of fuzzy distortion is mystifying, though it pricked at my like of the eccentric.
There’s no anchor to the tracks on Cendre, they feel groundless, like a bit of a jam session sprawling out from a couple of ideas (recorded in two days, this could well be the case). Given the ultimate root of where this music descends from, that it stabs at a freeform approach isn’t necessarily bad in itself, but it feels a little too loose and unfocused. The contradiction is that what most appeals about the album is the stuff that actually feels less traditionally doom in nature, the opening section of Cendre being a particular highlight.
In all, it’s an album that shows Cerbère have something about them, but I’m holding out hope more of that shows on the next one. 5/10
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