Classic Rock - Motor Head (2019-07)

Ball’s vocal dexterity lends epic
melodrama to star-gazing
voyages like The Spaceships Of
Ezekiel, and transforms the
gloomy chamber ballad Du Bist
Jetzt Nicht In Der Zukunft into
a spooked lament that summons
the occult spirit of cult seventies
erotic horror movies. Even at
their most ungainly, these
Bastards have admirably
grandiose Muse-meets-
Hawkwind ambitions which are
hard to fault.
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Stephen Dalton

Honeyblood
In Plain Sight MARATHON ARTISTS
Trashy, compulsive third from
a freshly solo Tweeddale.
’Some day I’ll get
to be disgustingly
happy and I’ll
stop searching
for something to
fight me,’ Glasgow’s grunge
empress Stina Tweeddale sings
over sweet, tinkling keyboards at
the end of her third album as
Honeyblood, but there’s little
sign so far of that happening.
Having gone through two
drummers in as many albums
and finally struck out solo, she
might have reigned in her
magnificent beratings of
scumbag exes so withering that
they amount to sonic castration

• ‘It used to be all about you but
  now you’re out of my view,’ she
  insists on the rusted Ronettes
  rattle of The Third Degree – but,

judging by the rats, cads and

gadabouts she’s courting on Kiss

From The Devil and Touch, she’s

still hellbent on romantic conflict.

She’s battling at her musical

borders too, exploring the

captivating trash-glam and

corroded electro-rock of Sleigh

Bells or Metric, touching on trip-

hop and Morricone noir, and

tripping up only when delving

into gothic electronica on Touch

and You’re A Trick, where she can

sound like Stevie Nicks lost at

the Whitby goth weekender.

Otherwise, as always, Stina’s

vexations are our pleasure.

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Mark Beaumont

Wreckless Eric

Transcience SOUTHERN DOMESTIC

What’s not to love?

Forty-one years after the era-

defining Whole Wide World and

the slew of bruised, burnished

love songs and albums that

surrounded it, Wreckless Eric

(née East Sussex-born poet/

songwriter Eric Goulden) is

still able to tug at the

heartstrings and raise a rueful

smile with his cracked, heartfelt

voice and wonderful way round a

cheap electric guitar and classic

pop hook.

Think of him as the punk

Buddy Holly, if you will, but to

some of us Eric was always as

great as your Graham Parkers

and Nick Lowes.

Transcience, his fourth album

of the 00s, is packed with gentle

pop nuggets and the odd

surprise – the seven-minute

The Half Of It, drifting along lazily

in the shallows of indifference;

the warped Kevin Coyne

travelogue Strange Locomotion

like everything once claimed for

The Proclaimers. It’s songs of the

dispossessed and searching,

songs written entirely on the

move, songs reflecting

a transient lifetime.

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Everett True

Black Mountain

Destroyer JAGJAGUWAR

Canadian weird-beards

embark on lysergic road trip.

Top gear!

Like the restored

1985 Dodge

Destroyer

muscle car it’s

named after, the

fifth album from Vancouver’s

Black Mountain beats with an

FM radio rock heart. But unlike

the vehicle mainman Stephen

McBean painstakingly pieced

back together, Destroyer is not

so much slavish recreation as

a hot-wired jumble of sounds

and styles welded together. Its

nine tracks fritz with ideas and

energy. With a monstrous riff

and Vocodered vocals, Horns

Arising sounds like a late-60s

vision of what music would

sound like in 1985, while Licenced

To Drive is the ultimate driving

song – if your idea of driving

songs involves pretending you’re

in a sci-fi movie chase scene

while off your norks on LSD.

McBean never takes his eyes

off the road, and Destroyer may

shake and shudder but it never

falls apart. All that’s missing is

one final squeal as Black

Mountain speed triumphantly

into the sunset.

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Dave Everley

Texas Hippie

Coalition

High In The Saddle EONE

The inventors of “red dirt

metal” deliver a litany of

glorious redneck cliches.

A profane

coagulation of

groove metal,

southern rock

and outlaw

country, Texas Hippie Coalition

sound like the kind of band you’d

get after giving a WWE wrestler

a record contract. Man-mountain

singer Big Dad Ritch is a force of

unruly nature with the voice of

a bison, and the end result is the

kind of thing Zodiac Mindwarp

might have come up with were

he raised among cattle.

High In The Saddle is a ridiculous

yet somehow magnificent album,

riddled with redneck clichés, with

songs that might be cast as

novelty were they not so well

written. Why Aren’t You Listening

could be a lost Soundgarden

classic, Ride Or Die might just be

2019’s biggest power ballad, and

Bullseye steers a perilous course

between NRA endorsement and

Bon Jovi-style stadium singalong.

Overall the album is a steer-

ropin’, whiskey-suppin’, six-

shootin’, pickup-drivin’, law-

evadin’ star-spangled hullabaloo.

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Fraser Lewry

Paul Gilbert

Behold Electric Guitar

MASCOT LABEL GROUP/MUSIC THEORIES

Singers – who needs ‘em?

Mr. Big guitarist

Paul Gilbert is

that rare breed

of shredder

who’s able to

appeal to non-musicians with

instrumental music, invariably

housing his guitar prowess

within memorable songs. Such

is his dedication to the art of

songwriting, he’s flagged up the

fact that with opener Havin’ It

“I finally wrote a song with long

guitar solos!” Even then, such

indulgence is couched in

a palatable, funk-meets-prog

setting redolent of Deep Purple

and Dixie Dregs, names that

spring to mind throughout

the album.

Across a mix of blues, rock,

pop and jazz, recorded live

without overdubs, Gilbert lays

down ear-worm melodies (Let

That Battery Die), balanced with

fret-scorching fireworks and

poetry about turtles (A Herd

Of Turtles).

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Rich Davenport

Glitter Wizzard:

delivered a masterpiece

with Opera Villains.

ROUND-UP: SLEAZE By Sleazegrinder

Sunwyrm

Doomshine WHAT’S FOR BREAKFAST

St Louis buzzbangers rip

through a devastating

set of throbbing

psychedelic street-metal

that essentially sounds

like some kind of Mad Max-y post-

apocalyptic satanic death-leather scenario

as performed by murderous Muppets.

There is at least one song about Planet

Of The Apes. They might all be. Relentless

and incredible. An album so heavy it’ll

probably kill you.

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Brower

Buzzsaws DIG!

After free porn, the

internet’s second

greatest achievement

has been the sonic

archeology conducted

that brought us gooey cheeseball

“junkshop glam” comps like Boobs and

Velvet Tinmine. We are now living in a mid-

70s glam-rock renaissance spearheaded by

bands like Guida, So What, Dancer and now

NY’s Brower, who deliver a tasty bowl of

low-rent Bolan boogie here.

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The Gung-Hos

Detonation Sound SELF-RELEASED

Detonation Sound is

an album of hardcore

punk’n’roll action from

Vancouver that’s

basically a runaway

rocket exploding in your bedroom, virtually

destroying everything around you and

leaving you in a pile of ashes. I’m as

shocked as you are that this ceaseless

battering ends with a cover of a Hawkwind

song (Urban Guerilla), but then again

Lemmy did cut his fangs there.

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Glitter Wizard

Opera Villains

HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS

These days we equate

concept records with

stuffy prog types, but

the first (and best)

ones were made by

drug-crazed freaks with no sense of

moderation. And while I’m not saying

Opera Villains is the SF Sorrow of the

Trump era, I am saying it’s at least its

Jesus Christ Superstar.

California’s Glitter Wizard began by

ripping off the Stooges, but over time

they’ve developed into this majestic pig-

pile of sonic excess, a towering cathedral

of fuzz and scuzz, a kind of Deep Purple-

meets-Gong-meets-Sabbath-meets-

dollar-store occultism gang-bang

wrapped into a lysergic burrito of

blistering rock’n’roll. Opera Villains throws

in more head-spinning surprises than

I can ever catalogue here, but I will say

that the vampire Jim Steinman piano

ballad Rats particularly shook me up. This

album is clearly a masterpiece. No one

will probably ‘get it’ for 100 years, but

that’s the price you pay for brilliance.

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Various

Down South Spaghetty

Accident SPAGHETTY TOWN

You know how your dad

tells you all the time that

he went to Woodstock,

even though you know

it’s bullshit? Last January

there was a rockfest in Atlanta so hot that

you will lie to your kids about it, too. This

comp documents that incredible display of

modern rock’n’roll firepower with blistering

tracks from RMBLR, Criminal Kids, BBQT,

Sick Bags and many more. Crucial.

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CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 81