I sort of thought this was gonna suck 'cause they call it "hillybilly rock" and the band looks like greasers or something. Then I noticed it was produced by Meiszko from Nasum (not that it matters) and got curious. And, indeed, these Swedish rockers aren't so bad. There's a major old time rock 'n' roll influence, but it's heavily infused with catchy and memorable punk rock, complete with gruff vocals that, to me, are reminiscent of skinhead/street punk or something. I love the vocals, though. They've got a lot of character and totally work for this music. The songs are driven by insanely tight basslines driving the core between open chords and basic drum patterns, occasionally accented by backup vocals or lead breaks. "Every Beat of My Heart" is a little faster and more energetic, where "Kings of the Night" is slower and has more of a serious tone to it (many of the songs are in a "fun" sort of vein), "Last Sigh of Summer" has some hyper distorted old school bluesy rock riffs, whereas "Bad Money" cuts back on the distortion and uses some classic runs that have probably appeared in thousands of songs over the last five decades, etc. My only gripe with the songwriting is that they do sort of recycle some of the same guitar parts in different songs, and that gets a little old. But fuck it. The recording is fine. The mix is 100% together with no gaps at all, the tones are natural, there's a lot of gritty distortion that really adds texture to everything, etc. I might even like to hear the bass be even more dominant, but not too much. I think the sound is damn near perfect for this style of music. The CD comes in a digipack with a minimal layout that's mostly text and black space, with a few band photos, etc. The band members all appear "in uniform" of sorts: Black pants, white shirts, suspenders, sleeves rolled up, hair slicked back, beefy sideburns... No lyrics are included, just recording information and such. This is a hell of lot better than I was expecting. Definitely a catchy set of songs from a band that knows what they're trying to do and does it well. It's sort of original in a sense too, I mean, you won't hear many bands of this nature taking a punk influence to such a classic rock 'n' roll formula. Good work.
[Rock Alliance]
Running time - 28:42, Tracks: 12
[Notable tracks: Baby Come Home, Mean Mean Woman, Every Beat of My Heart, Last Sigh of Summer]
Rock Alliance - http://www.rockalliance.net
