| CD REVIEW Rough Silk |
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Band: The Bullet Monks Well, they may be based in Erlangen (a town in the Nürnberg area of the Bayern province), but the backgrounds of the four musicians that make the line-up of this German Rock act is really quite culturally diverse. Formed only a couple of years ago (I ain’t sure when exactly, but an educated guess puts it down to at least September 2006…because that’s when they started a page on MySpace) by two guitar playing brothers (whose father is an Australian soldier from Melbourne stationed in Germany) and a drummer of French/ Canadian descent, they were then joined by a bassist with American parents (and I’m sorry to say that in spite of some research I could only find the names of two of the quartet: frontman Tyler Voxx, and drummer M.Dogg). With their ‘70s based Hard Rock sound which incorporates elements from doomy Blues Rock, Southern Rock, and even Desert Rock…but which the guys turned into something quite unique and exhileratingly driven (favourite ‘70s bands TBM mention on their MySpace page include Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Robert Plant, Frank Zappa…more modern influences include Iron Maiden, Black Label Society, Velvet Revolver, and Megadeth, but the list apparently goes on)…the band soon started making a name for themselves in their local area and managed to get producer Christoph Beyerlein (who’d previously helped local highlights J.B.O. to a smashing sounding album) to record their 12-track promo CD. In fact, they even got Andy Powell (of Wishbone Ash) to perform a guest guitar solo on one of the tracks! The J.B.O. connection held on, the “bigger” band frequently inviting the youngsters (the members of TBM have an average age of 24…or is it 25 now…today) to play support for them. In spite of all the publicity, and the band’s obvious qualities, a record deal stayed out…and the guys even participated to 2008’s Bodog Battle Contest in München. Then, finally (after a couple of months of meetings and scoutings), the quartet is contracted by Austrian label Napalm Records in late October of last year! And things now really start goin’ better for the band, when in December they also get a deal with a booking agency. So, now everybody with a taste for truly great ‘70s Hard Rock can get acquainted with this foursome’s album! People into Southern Rock, ‘70s Rock, and even Stoner Rock or just darn good Hard Rock really nééd to check out the songs the band posted at myspace.com/bulletmonks and discover the driven antics of these guys! I regret to say neither the song with Powell (“Under the Black Sun”), or my personal favourite “”Downtown Is Dead” (a bit calmer overall but still darn catchy, and a funny soundtrack-ish outro to boot!) are posted here, but what’s available will for sure give you a good idea of what this band is about: driven and up-tempo songs with great double lead guitar play and nice lead/ backing vocal interplay which invites people to sing along! Apparently the band is also given to do occasional “unplugged” performances, and like as if in preparation of that the guys also included an acoustic version of album opener “No Gain, Just Pain” (the electric version of which you wíll find at their MySpace page). Those among you into the above sub-genres, will probably immediately recognize the band’s qualities for what they are, but the more eclectic music listeners (among which I count myself) may need a couple of listening sessions to let the album grow on them (which is a sure thing to happen after only a couple of turns of the album in your cd-player)! Bottom line, this IS a grand album…but I ain’t willing to put it in my year-lists just yet. Something which might happen if I were given a little more time with the album, but hey…there’s about 20 other albums awaiting my attention right now (and the editor-in-chief has probably been burning promo copies of plenty more material for me to do in the past week)! 90/100 Tony. |