You know what? I review records most days – according to my spreadsheet this is the 290th of 2021 – and sometimes I want to close this website because it feels like a second job, I admit it.
Then, well, then…..along comes a band like The Drippers. And you remember why you love music in the first place.
Rewind 23 years. The world was a better place. For one thing Facebook didn’t exist, we didn’t have the internet in our homes mostly, and you never had a computer in your pocket so you could be connected at all times to people you largely don’t like anyway. Most important, though, something profound happened in my world.
There’s always those bullshit articles: the record that changed your life. In truth, if you spend your life loving music there could – and should – be loads of them, but Backyard Babies “Total 13” is definitely one for me. It led me to The Hellacopters and that led to the postman coming down our drive with about three records a week that I was having imported from various places around the world.
So there’s very much a back to basics feel – for me anyway – about “Scandinavian Thunder”. The follow up to 2019’s “Action Rock” pretty much does the same thing as the debut. That is to say, it blasts out of the speakers like its driving a Harley into the gates of hell, and makes it back out after shagging Satan’s missus.
In short, its rock n roll. But of a certain type.
And whether you love it or not depends on three things. 1) Whether these words “Produced by Tomas Skogsberg in Sunlight Studio” make you do a little sex wee 2) Whether you like fuzzed up, scuzzed up songs with the solos passing by at a zillion miles an hour and 3) As a catch all, do you love “Supershitty To The Max”?
I’m going to weed the wheat from the chaff by not explaining 1 or 3 (first rule of journalism is that you never assume knowledge, but what do rules matter in 2021, eh, Johnson, you tubby prick?) but three is all important.
“5 Day Blues (2 Day Boogie)” is your window to the mad, bad, dangerous world of the three piece. It’s utterly glorious, its fast, its furious and every day is Friday night and bollocks to the hangover. Saturday morning counts for shit.
“Overload” imagines a world where Lemmy decided that Motorhead aren’t fast enough or heavy enough, and takes it “out to the highway”. Crikey. “No Stars” does the same – in truth they all do but who cares – and if “Time For Some Action” adds just a touch of seasoning then the groove remains the same.
Viktor Skatt on vocals and bass – like Lemmy – does his thing, so does William Dickborn on guitar (I am going to assume this isn’t his real name, at a guess) and christ knows how they play so fast. Special mention though to drummer Niclas Kristoferson who flays his kit to within an inch of its life.
The best thing about the three though (aside from the fact that every single song has the explicit sign on Spotify!) is the glee that they do it all with. “Shine No Light” and “Racing Down A Dead End” only get made by fans (I like to think they were in the same record clubs as me) and “Rollin’ Aces” is two minutes 15 seconds that isn’t hiding any of its influences, not one bit.
“Draparshuffle” proves that even the slower ones are faster than your band, while there’s a real, proper rock n roll boogie about “Shit Island Showdown”. I am no Chuck Berry fan (I am kinda predisposed to dislike sex pests) but there’s a bit of a duck walk about this.
“Deadbeat Groove” rhymes “TV screen” with “Vaseline” and that’s a picture in the mind you can’t unsee at any point, and “Feel The Darkness” enters the void with not a care in the world, and claims that Johnny Walker and Jimmy Beam are the only mates the band have.
Usually I end these reviews with a glib remark about how if they moved in next door you’d best put your gaff up for sale. Not here, though. I am getting pissed off with next doors dogs waking me up all night and I reckon these boys would have all the best ….reading material.
I am not sure how I got to be so old that Scandinavian punk n roll needed a second wave, but we are where are and “The Drippers” are leading the charge.
Rating 9/10
