Rose 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.