Not entirely serious German’s bring the fuzzing fuzz
To those who say “you should never judge a book by its cover.” We respectfully say, “bollocks.” Because you can judge a band by its promo picture. There are some bands you just know that you are going to like even before you hit play.
Take Plainride. On the image that they sent to co-incide with this album they are stood by a wall, surrounded by beer bottles, clad in more denim than 1970s Status Quo and a couple of them are sporting headbands for goodness sake.
They couldn’t look more rock n roll if they tried.
Then there’s the back-story, and by crikey it’s a belter. Fabe van Fuzz reckons he’s a noble man with a shady past, he rescued Leo Lionthatch from a caste of clerics in a monastery to play drums (now MV is not making this up, but you suspect Plainride might be) either way they recruited a singer called Max Rebel and a fourth member “of the landed gentry” Florian “The Brave” Schlenker and this is their debut record.
Now quite frankly, at this point they could release an acid house album and we’d probably like them, but thankfully, even without all the rest of it, “Return Of The Jackalope” is a work of rare beauty.
It’s 13 songs cheerfully kick off with “Challenger 69” which not only brings with it a riff that would shake the earth, and a shit load of cowbell but, well, this line: “if you’re having girl problems I feel bad for you dear, we’ve got 99 bottles and we’ll have ‘em right here.” So yeah, take that Jay-Z.
Oh and by the way it does this in less than two and a half minutes if you please.
“Salt River” – its glorious second song – manages to outdo that. Any track that starts with this line: “today I killed my father with a shovel and a shotgun” and still make it sound the most fun ever, is probably verging on genius, and so it goes on and on.
“Return Of The Jackalope” is heavy hillbilly stuff, “Dog” is an exercise in primal riffery that it’s rare to see this side of Fu Manchu and “(The Beards Upon) Mt Rushmore” surely needs no more explanation than to say this: if it was on a Clutch album it would still rule – and praise doesn’t get higher than that.
Elsewhere, “Vengeance” is surprisingly tender and bluesy, but Plainride are better when they let their hair down for a good old rootsy headbang, as on “The News” and the veritably thumping “Black Wolves”.
Although they are let’s say, not the most serious band you’ll ever hear, when it comes to the actual songwriting, there is a real class here. “The Grailknights” comfortably the longest thing on offer, boasts an ambition to be applauded.
It’s also a very versatile record. “Beermachine” has touches of psychedelics, “Devil At Your Heels” has an opening guitar lick that knows its way around Hendrix, and verses that swagger, while the closing “Warpdrive” is nothing more and nothing less than a freak-out of the highest order.
There is just a suspicion here that although all the bluster is downright funny Plainride are a band that know they are rather good and have something just a little special here. If you strip away all the nobility nonsense and look just at the music, you will find something that deserves to be in the upper echelons of rock n roll very soon. Plainride, might just be leaving Germany and reaching for the skies.
Rating 9/10
