SOUTH OF SALEM – DEATH OF THE PARTY (2024)
South Of Salem are probably the hardest-working band in rock. You name a band, they’ll be there supporting them (they’re about to go out with Kris Barras) and that experience shines through on “Death Of The Party”. “Vultures” opens it up in a sort of HIM ballpark and dark, yet fiercely catchy rock n roll is their stock in trade.
They can get heavy when they want – hell, “Static” grooves, and they are capable of moments of brilliance too – “Jet Black Eyes” has you covered there. Their love of hooks is all over this, even on the slower ones, like “Hellbound Hound” with its keyboards to the fore.
Mostly, though, if you’ve seen them live, you’ve seen this album , as it were. Energy, infectious, effortlessly cool. “Bad Habits (Die Hard) proves it. And the title track is probably the best of the lot.
Working with Romesh Dodangoda (Motorhead et al) has really helped them move things on to the next level. Just occasionally, a band comes out of the shadows and really crosses over (think Massive Wagons, Those Damn Crows, Stone Broken) here’s the next. Everything about “Death Of The Party” is primed and ready.
Rating 8.5/10
COBRAKILL – SERPENTS KISS (2024)
The clue here is in the first four words of the press pack. “German Heavy Metal Band” – and that’s Cobrakill all over.
Germany has a particular sort of metal at its heart. From Accept to Doro, it’s unashamed and unabashed. From “Above The Law” onwards here, it gets its fists in the air and they stay there. ”Bazooka” offers to “touch my weapon as you go down” – and somewhere Bon Scott wishes he’d written it (it’s not even a double entendre, let’s be fair).
Even the more modern ones like “Concrete Jungle” are impossible to resist, and if the titles give it away slightly – “Some Ol’ Nasty Rock N Roll” anyone? – then CobraKill love it so much they sweep you along.
“Hungry Heart” swings its big old balls about, and “Ride My Rocket” might fit in on the first Motley Crue record, but that doesn’t make it any less fun in 2024. Indeed, by the time that “Velvet Snakeskin” (and there really should be a glam band called that!) has reprised the NWOBHM (CobraKill probably weren’t born) you’ve given in.
Yes, you’ve heard it a million times before, but does that make “Serpents Kiss” any less fun? No, to be honest.
Rating 8/10
GOTUS – GOTUS (2024)
Just occasionally a debut album emerges and you think: Christ, where’s this come from? This is that record. Gotus is not your usual “new” band, mind you. For one thing its got Ronnie Romero singing, for another Tony Castell, the bassist, has been in Krokus.
The results are seen as early as the opening track “Take Me To The Mountain” – with all its Deep Purple isms. Keys man Alain Guy gives it his best Jon Lord, and if “Beware Of The Fire” doesn’t quite get down to the Lake Geneva shoreline, then its not far off.
As happy to do lengthy songs like “Love Will Find Its Way” as it is full on rockers like “Weekend Warriors”, whatever Gotus do, is just done with an absolute class. Towards the end there’s a real epic sounding thing. “When The Rain Comes” is dark, primal blues, and indeed, blues is more to the fore in the second half of the album, as “What Comes Around Goes Around” is infused with it too.
As the last one, “The Dawn Of Tomorrow” proves, though, Gotus are just a superb band.
They were originally formed as a live outfit, it’ll be interesting if they hit the road, that’s for sure.
Rating 8/10
GRAND – SECOND TO NONE (2024)
Another week, another Swedish AOR band with an album released by Frontiers Records. As sure as the sun sets, too, you know what Grand are going to do.
The thing is, however, one listen to “Crash And Burn” and you’re hooked. Jakob Svensson (formerly of Wigelius) on guitar and keyboards propels the likes of “When We Were Young” and if singer Mattias Olofsson wasn’t born to sing groovers like “Rock Bottom” then I don’t know who was.
“Second To None” is aptly named given its their second record. The 80s-sounding “Lily” is proof too, that it is more diverse and better than the debut.
There’s a sense of fun here, like they’ve let the handbrake off, on the likes of “Kryptonite”, and the strident intro to “Out Of The Blue” suggests they feel it too.
These things almost have to follow the template of rockers and ballads mixing together. “…None” is unquestionably better when it does the former, like “Achilles Heel” although the epic-sounding “Daze Of Yesterday” which sounds like it could have come off the “Frozen” soundtrack, is clearly one they all enjoyed.
AOR fans – and they are legion – will lap this up. It won’t concern the rest of you and that’s just fine.
Rating 8/10
ELECTRIC BLACK – LATE NIGHT LIGHTNING (2024)
Since “Late Night Lightning” was released, I’ve seen Electric Black play. Opening for Bad Touch, I said that night: “Ambition and skill mixed in equal measure they are ones to watch – promising “good honest rock for good people” as they do, is no bad thing and they make good on all of that here” and it’s on the album too. “Put It Down On Me” contains the idea that “the devil’s daughter wouldn’t go down so well”, and yes, ok you’ve heard it before, but Electric black love this.
So should you.
Just occasionally they touch greatness here. The Black Crowes-ish “Take The Roof Off” is a belter. A homage to finishing work on a Friday, it is working-class British rock done right.
The blues is never too far away here, but there’s more to it. “Master Or Disaster” is propelled by a metal edge, Alistair Shiach has the voice to make songs like the title track his own, while lead man Jonny Bryant knocks a lead guitar out with the best of them. It makes for an intoxicating brew.
The last one “Hellfire Revival” is made for playing live. An absolute fizzing cracker, it shows the depth of talent we have playing hard rock right now. When “Late Night Lightning” hits, it strikes hard.
Rating 8.5/10
NECK DEEP – NECK DEEP (2024)
Back in January Wrexham’s Neck Deep released their self-titled, fifth album. The band are, unquestionably the biggest pop-punk act the UK has ever produced.
And that title is doing a lot of heavy lifting too. When a band calls its fifth album after itself, it always feels like a statement: This is us. Right here.
And what they are, right from opener “Dumbstruck Dumbfuck” is full of beans and bigger on harmonies. “Sort Yourself Out” will get moshpits going everywhere, and even the slower ones like “This Is All My Fault” have one eye on the live arena.
Self-produced, in their own warehouse, the band reckon this was “Old school, just like it used to be.” And yet it sort of doesn’t matter, given that “Heartbreak Of The Century” and the likes are already counting their streaming numbers in the millions.
If you didn’t know they were British, you’d never guess, but there’s such an energy about songs like “They May Not Mean To (But They Do)” that it carries things along.
A fizz-bomb of a thing for 33 minutes, “Moody Weirdo” shows they have perfected the damn sound. I am old enough to remember when pop-punk first came along about 25 years back in the wake of “Dookie”. Stick Neck Deep in any era, and they would have been brilliant at it.
Rating 8/10
THE INCURABLES – INSIDE OUT AND BACKWARDS (2024)
Power pop is ace, and here’s why. The Incurables are men – shall we say – of a “certain age” and the first song on “Inside Out And Backwards” is called “When I Grow Up”. They also sound like it’s the last thing they want to do. Ever.
It’s an absolute beauty. The Ramones wish they’d written “Far Away” and anyone who’s ever dreamed of writing a three-minute pop song would wish they’d written the bass-heavy groover of “Soda Pop”. Think Surf Rock done in Detroit. Dumb. Fun.
“Back Into Eloise” has nothing to do with The Damned, and everything to do with timeless, lo-slung, dirty fun. God help the poor woman. “Funhouse” dials up the punk and is perhaps half the number of the beast, as it clocks in at 3.33?
As it finishes with the insanely catchy “I Told Myself (Absolutely Nothing)” there’s a thought that this might actually be ten covers they found from about 1978. If it is, who cares? That it’s not and came out in 2024, somehow makes it even better.
A homage to growing old disgracefully. Or not growing up at all. Whatever. Rock n roll is an Incurables disease. They prove it on “Inside Out And Backwards”.
Rating 8.5/10
