Fortune favours the bold: a concept I’ve never quite grasped.
I don’t necessarily want to take you in to my private hell, but if I’d understood this back in the 90s, there might possibly be a chance that I wouldn’t have walked past the girl of my dreams day after day and never actually told her. If I’d understood that fortune favoured the brave I probably wouldn’t have ended up at her wedding, or now, 20 years later, I probably wouldn’t go to work in a mind-numbing tedium.
But for every of us that is meek (and most definitely won’t inherit the earth) there’s Alter The Sky. One listen to the title track of this and you wouldn’t actually bet against them taking the planet. To be quite frank with you, I’d say woe betide the person who told their singer Hels not to do something. The song is hers and she owns it, and you aren’t taking it from her without a fight. I wouldn’t actually be surprised if the damn cover was a real picture…..
Musically, it is a British hard rock record with absolutely no apologies. Think Heaven’s Basement when they were still hungry and weren’t chasing hits. Think Inglorious, think whatever you like, because whatever you think these four songs are going to grab you by the throat if they have to.
To that end, “The Blamed” slams and in fairness makes good on their confessed love for The Wildhearts (whoever wrote that bio knows how to get a review around here) but this is its own sound, not some copy – and Mat’s bass is as mighty as you like here.
They’ve got a bit more “ooompphh” than many of their contemporaries – largely because it’s a twin guitar attack, and Gal and Kev play a blinder on “Piece Of You”, which more than any other hints at light and shade and ends up chugging along in a most BSC type way.
“Another Way” ends things and will surely be fun live and is the sound a sassy, groovy five piece with a lot to offer. This is ATS’s second EP, according to their bio they have a new line-up (this one has been together just over a year) and – there’s no point in lying – I’d not heard the debut. What I do know is this: This is a fresh start anyway.
There’s a line on the first song that sums it all up. “Grab it with both hands, take everything you want,” roars Hels. That is the point. This one is for all those who dream that the planet is theirs for the taking. The rest of us can listen in awe.
Rating 8.5/10
