There’s a real earthy accessibility and youthful vitality to Greece’s Cyanide 4 and their vintage take on Hard Rock. Take the opening track ‘Restless’ – it’s nothing you haven’t heard before, nothing that you didn’t expect, nothing that will blow you away but its a damned good song, nice and sparsely produced and it just has that ‘something’.
‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Hero’ adds to the sound, its more intense, more of everything really, and it falls in the territory inhabited by bands like the excellent ‘Crazy Lixx’ or ‘H.E.A.T.’ – great modern bands that manage to capture the essence of great hard rock especially of the 80’s, and run with it rather than just paint by numbers. Well Cyanide 4 might not be reaching those lofty heights just yet but there’s enough on offer here to suggest that we might soon be able to mention them in that list.
If you like those opening pair then check out the videos for ‘Getaway’ and ‘Everyday is a Masquerade’ (the atter from their debut album) on the band’s Facebook page – where you’ll find all the latest news from Sinn, Slut, Nasty and …. Alex. (I think Alex may have been away the day the band decided to adopt ‘over the top’ Glam names). Joking aside though these guys do have something going on for fans of the Sunset Strip era. Though while the bio talks of Vain, Ratt and Motley Crue I get more modern sounds like Crashdiet on the likes of ‘Incinerate’ and even ‘The Almighty’ on standout track ‘Lucky 13’.
This is a good album, even a little Hanoi Rocks-like groove on ‘A Light Among Darkness’ and best of the rest are probably the big Arena-filling sounds of ‘Amphetamine Dreams’ and closing track ‘Love Me When I’m Dead’ which really blows the windows out on the way out.
Well worth exploring.