Lets start with the press release: “Dirty Elektricity is Australia’s authentic rock and roll band, the brain child of guitarist George Larin (Nothing Sacred), the band hails from Melbourne, Australia the Mecca of Australian rock and roll. Dirty Elektricity brings a modern vibe to the great rock sounds of 70’s & 80’s, with a spectacular live show, as the band debut the self-titled album “Dirty Elektricity” Each band member is a veteran of the Australia live music scene and a dedicated rock fan and with combined talent and passion Dirty Elektricity is a band not to be missed”.
Sounds promising right?
Well those familiar with Larin’s Metal band Nothing Sacred first things first – this isn’t as intense or Metallic as those recordings. Now that we’ve cleared that one up and told you what it’s not – what it is, is Larin on all instruments with vocals provided by Dean Burgess who has the sort of voice that can straddle the world of classic Rock and Metal.
Opening with ‘The Sinner’ which has an almost hard rock boogie groove with some nice fat guitar sounds and nice extended solo, they immediately shift gear into ‘The City’ which has a Stonesy thrust, then twist again to reveal the Sabbathy riff and thrust of ‘Power.’
‘Cold Hearted’ shifts decades to hard rock with a nice 80’s edge, then we stumble into more boogie with ‘Mean Street Racing’ before the groove-laden ‘Take It Easy’ kicks in; before the wonderful slide guitar of ‘Country Woman’ comes to steal the show.
Closing out the album ‘Reality’ is the most experimental track here and chugs and crawls stylishly along; and ‘Iron Angels’ is as close to Metal as we get – built on a mile wide riff and great vocal; that just leaves the title track ‘Dirty Elektricity’ a blues-based instrumental with that recurring boogie theme to close.
Dirty Elektricity sounds like it was a lot of fun to make, and it’s eclecticism is part of its harm, as are its blatant blue-collar nature and meat and potatoes attitude. This is a great rock and roll record made to be played loud.