Tag Archives: SPV

Articles

Saxon – Into The Labyrinth

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Saxon - Into The LabyrinthSaxon – Into The Labyrinth (Steamhammer/SPV)

As one of the prominent players in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, Saxon‘s thirty-year career has been marred by missteps, misguidance, and general malfeasance by whoever is claiming to lead them.

The band gained deserved attention with a handful of very good releases early on in their career, ending with the excellent Denim and Leather. Their track record was built on hard anthems that typically dealt with things like motorcycles, playing in a rock band, and the occasional song about a train. The band was not very easy on the eyes, their lead vocalist had a limited range, and their musicianship would not qualify as anything spectacular. But the fact that they began to make some inroads with increasing sales was admirable, and their everyman persona could serve as an inspiration to likeminded acts that had similar discouragements.

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Articles

Rose Tattoo – Blood Brothers

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Rose Tattoo - Blood BrothersRose Tattoo – Blood Brothers (Steamhammer/SPV)

Within the first half-minute of Rose Tattoo‘s tenth album, vocalist Angry Anderson is already threatening to knock some teeth out. In other words, it’s another typical Rose Tattoo album, the Australian quartet that will be celebrating no less than thirty years of balls out, dental damaging rock this year.

One would expect a man who’s already a few years past 60 to take it easy and settle down after creating such a grimy catalog of pub rock memorabilia as his band has done. Apparently, Anderson and company have a few more things to bark about before closing the books on Sydney, Australia longest running best-kept secret.

Blood Brothers is fairly interchangeable with the rest of Rose Tattoo’s catalog: the band blends authentic dirty blues with a slice of English hard boogie with the same amount of passion that they did with their debut in 1978. It’s easy to figure that this authenticity has to do with the simple fact that they’re probably playing the same rough-hewn Australian pubs that they did thirty years ago. In other words, their ink is not a fashion statement used to build credibility or to display authenticity. Its honest graffiti from the wrong side of the tracks, permanent maps of each dive they’ve played and every badass they’ve shared a beer with. It’s probably for the best that they never got the same notoriety as their counterparts, because they probably wouldn’t have made it out alive. Popularity would have easily made Rose Tattoo soft, and when you get soft, you get passed by someone who wants it more than you do.

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Articles

Motorhead – Motorizer

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Motorhead - MotorizerMotorhead – Motorizer (SPV)

Not to alarm anyone…from what I understand, Lemmy Kilmister is doing fine…but I think we need to start considering that there will be a point when Motorhead is no longer with us. I mention this because it’s so easy to take institutions like Motorhead for granted when they’re still around, touring every year, and making albums that go largely unnoticed because, well, because they sound just like virtually every album in their catalog.

You did this with the Ramones. Admit it. And it wasn’t until they called it a day until you realized “Holy fuck! The Ramones aren’t around anymore!” Then three-quarters of them died and you felt bad that you took it all for granted. You had all of those opportunities to see them live, but you squandered them.

Don’t let that happen with Motorhead. Go see them before it’s too late. Christ, they’re probably playing at some dive right now down the street while you’re dicking around on the internet.

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