New Zealand hard rock / stoner`s Sidewinder have a new album `Talons` out this month featuring a new vocalist Jem Tupe who joins guitarists Ben Sargent and Thomas Rousell, bassist Sean Fitzpatrick and drummer Grant Lister.
The album opens with `Guardians` and what immediately hits you is the enormous, varied vocal range from singer Jem Thorpe which I have to say is immense. The number is pretty heavy and kind of entices almost teases you in with its languorous lethargic charm. We have in `Wasted Space` a rhythmic foot tapper that really feels like a driving record initially and will have you at least nodding your head along to it. There`s a brief almost psychedelic diversion midway through which continues to the conclusion of the track.
`Prisoner` has a harder rock feel which increases in pace as it evolves while `The Depths` is much more of an edgy vibrant slow burn.
`Disarm The King` has an energetic, effervescent jaunty texture as it rolls along with an almost challenging swagger. There was a real self-assuredness or bluster to `Desert Song` which veers from a pounding thumping stride to a much more reflective almost serious blistering intensity.
We have an almost spiritual vibe to the ballad like `Northern Lights` which maybe mirrors the title and an aurora borealis like atmospheric natural light display. The album closes out with `Yggdrasil` which is (from Old Norse Yggdrasill) an immense and central sacred tree in Norse cosmology. It`s a heavier groove laden offering and no better a track to close out on.
If you want an enticing mix of doom, psych, stoner, metal, blues with plenty of substantial riffs along route, then look no further than The Land of the Long White Cloud`s Sidewinder. We have all that and more throughout its thirty-five minutes where `Talons` will certainly gets it`s claws into you if you allow it.
Rating 8/10
