Review Straight Frank - And we walked by with a bag full of money... 2009

Everything started out as some jamming among friends, and then it all happened very fast. In less than four months they had over 50,000 plays on myspace. Soon they were contacted by the German company Bodog music who have previously signed greats like DMX and Wu Tang Clan. Then, nine months later we can see the debut album with a long name you can read above, in the stores that still carries records. Well, all of this was taken from the first lines of the promotional information that accompanied this record.

These guys are not your regular guys who start a band, they are three music producers and one tattoo artist all with some experience and all with the same vision when it comes to making rock music. They all wanted to find the way back to the straight and simpler rock music.

So, did they succeed in their quest of making simpler rock music? Well, I would have to say both yes and no. They are musically rather simple but as someone once said, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, is it not? The reason I say no is more that the guitars in some of the tracks are rather spectacular, and different. The band differs from most other rock bands I have heard, the similar bands are there just because I read that they were similar at another site, I don’t really agree about it but cannot figure out any bands that are more similar either.

Musically we have very melodic rock/hardrock music with some different guitar lines that musically sets this band apart from other bands in the genre. The musical landscape is painted in a very sophisticated way and it has some depths. You can hear there is quite a bit of passion in the music and the fine tunes, polished production suits the musical landscape very well, a smooth, sophisticated record.

Opening To the Lonely Sound of a Shotgun catches me right away with an amazing opening guitarlines and the then speaking guitar rythms, somewhat related in feel to some of Eddie Van Halen’s makes this song a real winner. And it continues through We All Die Young, Mary and so forth. The songs are mostly brilliant and all the way through the record and accompanied by brilliant and clean production this record becomes a real winner.

If I were to count favourite songs of this record I would have to count just about all of them, and well superlatives about a new wave of rock music or whatever feel like they may be suited when speaking of these guys. The funny thing is that this band have just finished their first album and if we look into the crystal ball we can realise that the future holds a lot more interesting and skilled music for this band. I cannot wait for the next album, or the next reincarnation or whatever when it comes to this band, especially if they make songs like this records opener.

To the lonely sound of the shotgun this record runs through its minutes like the dying moments, had I heard the lonely sound, this record would have been a fitting end.

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