I must admit that The New Roses are one of my favorite bands of the last few years, so it’s great to see a new album about to drop after 2017’s wonderful ‘One More For the Road’ which itself swiftly followed a couple of other fine releases: ‘Dead man’s Voice’ (2016) and their fired-up debut ‘Without a Trace’ (2013). I recommend them all of course, but you know what? This one might just be the best of them all…
Opening track ‘Soundtrack of My Life’ hits the ground at pace and sounds like a band brimming with self-belief and at the top of their game. There’s the trademark melodies, big riffs, hooks and Southern tinge to this fired up Rock and Roll, and boy the 2019 vintage sounds good. After successful live appearances all over the world, recently with Kiss, and on the verge of a summer tour with Scorpions, the New Roses and Timmy Rough sound like they are in the mood to top their last offering which hit the top 20 in Germany.
‘Can’t Stop Rock & Roll’ is just as rocking with a latter-day Aerosmith feel and real directness that will please Rock fans the world over; and recent single and video ‘Down By the River’ (see below) just soars as Timmy sings of simpler times and easy pleasures: it’s an anthem for huge stadiums, a song to sing along to on those hot summer nights or under stadium lights. One things for sure these guys know how to pull out the big guns from the off!
The New Roses – Down By The River
And it just keeps giving: Title track ‘Nothing but Wild’ has a trademark country bar swagger and a huge hook, whilst ‘Heartache’ is a simple Southern Rocker with swagger and attitude the way latter day Bon Jovi would swing it, but crisper and with more feeling. ‘The Bullet’ that arrives next is softer, a ballad that is in ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ territory but eschews the cowboy trappings for a simpler tale of loss and the soothing power of music. And we’re rocking again for ‘Running Out of Hearts’ which soars our of the speakers and sets sails to the heart of the sun, uplifting and with a ‘Summer Sky‘ feel, it’s sure to be a great crowd-pleaser and comes laced with some killer guitar.
‘Nothing But Wild’ is certainly a Hard Rock album at heart but it does lean towards that ‘Country Rock’ sound perhaps more than any other release by the band so far; and ‘Unknown Territory’ is perhaps the song that inclines itself furthest that way, hitting like a contemporary country rocker, and together with ‘Meet Me Half Way’ (another song you feel would be real ‘boot-scooting’ music in other hands) it is the Country soul of the record.
‘As the Crow Flies’ takes us back to that infectious Southern-tinged Hard Rock though, it’s simple, straight to the point and one of my favourites here. But there’s so much more still to come: ‘Give & Take’ has a great swagger and rolling groove and made to sing-along-to gang vocal, and the perfectly placed ‘The Only Thing’ is another slower number and the most ‘Bon Jovi-like‘ here, but whilst Jon always strove to be Springsteen, you feel that Timmy gets far closer to that working man’s music than he ever did. Final track proper, ‘Glory Road,’ comes with trademark country twang, but again enough Rock to right the ship. It’s a great closer, and another to have you singing along to.
The album ends with two ‘unplugged’ songs, which like all the best acoustic treatments add new dimensions to what you’ve already heard (in the case of ‘Take Me To the River’) as well as making you wonder if this is closer to the way that the songs evolved for ‘Nothing But Wild’. ‘Down By the River’ that we’ve heard before has an even more pronounced country feel acoustically and stripped back to the bare bones the heart of the song really shines.
The heartfelt and beautiful ‘Fight You Leaving Me’ closes things wonderfully, making you wonder why this didn’t make it onto the album proper – stripped back its a beautiful moment and maybe thats the point.
Not many bands are writing songs as good as these at the moment in the world of Hard Rock and if like me you don’t mind the Southern, Country and Americana leaning of many of the songs then this is for you, it might even be your album of the year…