You can do all kinds of crazy stuff when you review as many albums as I do, I once went through a month where I started every review with “I love…” a few years ago I decided I’d only review live albums and EPs until someone sent me an album by an artist that began with the letter “Z” and five arrived the very next day. Why? Sometimes the volume of music you want to tell people about gets too great even after you’ve filtered out all the stuff you don’t want to tell people about.
So sometimes we are a little late, but the theory here at The Rockpit is a simple one – we’ll only review albums we like (unless it’s a major release) and we’ll always tell you the truth. If you send us something and you don’t see it for a while just bug us about it – if we don’t like it we’ll tell you if we do then we’ll get there at some point! I got 567 albums for review in April hence why this one is a little late. April was a quiet month.
At just six tracks EP’s are sometimes the best of things and the worst of things sometimes five or six songs isn’t quite enough, but then again think of the number of albums over the years with as many killer tracks as ‘fillers’.
It starts with a creaking door, the click of fingers and then a substantially thick groove: ‘Low and Slow’ crawls along to over a minute before you realise that three are probably not going to be any vocals, so when they finally kick in at a minute thirty it’s a welcome surprise. It’s an interesting track in that it comes across as more of a glance across a crowded room at a party than a real introduction to the band. Like that look though, it’s intriguing enough to make you stay.
‘Double Wide’ has a little more urgency and you might even allege an armful of smooth Pop-Rock thrust by way of bands like TPOH, Queens Of The Stone Age or a slightly worse for wear (in a good way) Clutch. There is again that wonderful groove underlying it. By the time you get to ‘Desert Dust’ there’s a real Desert Rock meets Punk via Grunge vibe going down.
‘442’ is a real pleasure a wonderful bass-driven screeching rocker with drive and a real old school heavy rock vibe, and as it’s about cars I rather like it’s slinky Circus of Power ‘Motor’ era thrust. Indeed it might just edge it for me here. ‘Personal issues’ underlines all that’s gone before but in slow-motion, deeper and darker and even thicker of groove before it kicks up a gear before the minute and a half mark before the vocals come in late again. It’s the most interesting song here and the most muscular too and very compelling.
Final track (and video) ‘Showdown’ is almost the other side of the coin, bold and thumping from the off with a Bluesy groove and the sort of song you hope gets heard and embraced by fans out there.
If you love Queens Of The Stone Age or Masters of Reality or Them Crooked Vultures or Clutch or Circus of Power or just good old fashioned Heavy Rock then this is one for you: a bit Bluesy, a bit Classic Rock, a bit Punk, but definitely 100 percent Rock.
