Ah the smell of cheese I hear you say? Well sure, naming your band ‘Love Stallion’ might suggest a certain type of band, a certain type of music or at the lest suggest a rather cheeky sense of humour and obviously underlining it with an album called ‘Unforgettable Ride’ does suggest an (unbridled) sense of fun. After all what really matters is fun isn’t it? Well that and good songs of course.
By the time the rather pleasing mid-paced rocker and opener ‘Slow Release’ ends though you’re still waiting for the in-joke or the punch-line and incredibly as hard as you listen it never comes. Indeed as the album progresses you find yourself checking the name of the band and that cheeky album title, searching for double-ententes, but none are forthcoming.
So now that’s out of the way what you find you have here is a rather nice collection of languid rockers that take something from the 70’s something from the 80’s and very little from elsewhere. ‘Ignite the Night’ you feel might set the fuse alight and promises on the back of the cowbell a night of guitar and good times, but somehow its well work riff and familiar beat never really hit top gear, and the song ends up rather like the rock equivalent of comfort food, damned good and pleasing but not really working off any calories.
‘Big Rock Radio’ that follows again sounds familiar with chugging guitars and count in, a nice thrust of the hips and we’re away with another comfortable mid-tempo rocker. That in turn gives way to ‘Lazy Summer Dream’ which as you might imagine starts off gently and is a nice enough song but doesn’t really grab you despite nice harmonies and cool high vocals.
Deeper in ‘Hide Me Away’ has a nice retro rock feel but again its a track of the lighter kind , dripping in melodies and saccharin sweet, and by the time ‘Tinker Toys’ comes around you do get the feeling you’ve heard the song before, whether thats a side-effect of the preponderance of mid-tempo rockers I’m not sure, but there’s certainly a familiarity that kicks in by the second half of the album.
The only track I really don’t like here though is ‘Valentine’ – another slow number and one that quite frankly I find a little dreary and depressing, but that quickly gives way to ‘High Time’ shows a few teeth, sports a meaty riff and despite the cheesy spoken interjections has plenty to recommend it as a straight ahead rocker. Very old school of course but very nice.
‘Trans Am’ that closes starts with the sound of screeching tires and a well worn chugging riff and whilst you might expect a little speed on a song with such a title the pace here is rather medium, rather like much of the rest of the album.
This is a decent effort that will appeal to a host of old school rockers what I like most is that its well played, well performed and has a certain sound about it that suggests it was forged in past decades. Where Love Stallion lose out and come across like a one trick pony is that there’s very little variety of pace here – we move from first to second gear quite comfortably, cruise a little in third but never get to fourth.
Maybe the most interesting thin though is that for a band with a name like that and the suggestion of as real sense of humour none of that comes out in the lyrics here, indeed there’s very little excess at all on display. This is no Steel Panther like you might have assumed had you just read the name. I really like this but it’s certainly not what I expected.
