Take a computer graphic from 1983. Use it to create the outline of a naked woman. Call the band Naked. To be honest, that doesn’t really get things off to the best start, but could possibly be forgiven if the music within this album was of a high standard. Which it isn’t. As it is, most the tunes on this Swedish band’s debut release sound very tired.
Tag Archives: rock
COLT 45 – Snakes & Ladders EP
Following 2014’s full-length ‘The Tide Is Turning’, Colt 45 embarked on a series of live dates which saw them become festival favourites as well as sharing stages with mighty punk ‘n’ roll/soul punk revivalists The Computers. For the Cumbrian based alt rock/punk outfit, busy certainly became the watchword. In the build up to the release of their 2016 EP ‘Snakes & Ladders’, the band continued to receive strong press notices and build their following farther. On hearing ‘Snakes & Ladders’ – assuming Colt 45 had previously slipped under your radar – it should be obvious why they’ve received such a cult buzz, especially since the lead track ‘All Hell Broke Loose’ (issued as a single and YouTube video prior to the EP) is perhaps one of the best exponents of its style since Deaf Havana hit with the furiously infectious ’22’.
SUNSTORM – Edge Of Tomorrow
In 2015, the legendary Joe Lynn Turner lent his vocal stylings to an all-star project entitled Rated X. A hard rock release best designed to impress fans of a Euro metal style and injected with an obvious influence from Rainbow, the album found Joe in good voice. It was also by far the best thing Carmine Appice had been associated with since 1986. Fans hoped that Turner would next reappear as part of the resurrected Rainbow and, by all accounts, he was keen to get involved, but Ritchie Blackmore – and perhaps, more importantly – Ritchie Blackmore’s ego had other plans.
THE BLOAKES – Kanye Westboro Baptist Church EP
It’s hard to resist a release with a title like ‘Kanye Westboro Baptist Church’. Swedish combo The Bloakes clearly have a sense of humour, but take their music very seriously. Here are five men who are committed to taking their listeners back to a great musical past, while simultaneously keeping the sounds of psychedelia in the present, whenever that may be. Their music is unashamedly retro with some very obvious touchstones, but never ever lazy in its construction. The result is five songs that sound like a jam between The Beatles, Traffic, Primal Scream and The Charlatans, with a little Swedish prog chucked in the pot for good measure – and it’s bloody fabulous.
PEARL HANDLED REVOLVER – If The Devil Cast His Net
Chances are, you’ve previously read something about Pearl Handled Revolver that likens them to Tom Waits. If you have, just forget it. Their frontman Lee Vernon posses the vocal stylings of a few old souls, but comparisons to Waits are pretty much right out. There’s very little heroin and drink addled shouting in his delivery, nor is the music his voice fronts in any way obtuse enough to be derived from absolutely anything in the Tom Waits catalogue, especially post 1983. There are swathes of music on this – Pearl Handled Revolver’s third album – that culls huge influence from The Doors, explores the darkest corners of Love and even shows allegiance to the more contemporary sounds of Mark Lanegan, but those coming looking for a direct influence from Waits will be disappointed. Waits, too, being ever the contrarian, might even be put out that his name is being banded about in places, simply because an album includes work by a vocalist who has probably had a snifter of whiskey. In short, it’s typical lazy journalism to wheel out the Waits comparisons just because a vocalist has a darker sound in his delivery – and it’s usally almost exclusively the practice by hacks who’ve seemingly never heard a Tom Waits LP.