REVIEW: The Gasölines – Death or Eternal Glory (2022)

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“I don’t believe in God, but I do believe in love” so sang The Almighty on “Wild And Wonderful”. And it just about sums up my beliefs (except the “love” bit, that’s overrated) but as you get older, there’s a bit of you that thinks “what if I am wrong? What if I die and I get up there – or own there – and I’ve bet the wrong horse.

Well hope is at hand, because if and when I travel to hell this is the music that I am taking with me as I give St Peter the middle finger, I am sound. Ive got The Gasölines in my, lets go!

“Death Or Eternal Glory” is the follow up to “Cannonball Run” from last year, a record that essentially reaffirmed that world cannot, is not and will never be, a bad place. It went buy in a hail of leads, riffs, bullets. Oil. Ok, not sure about the bullets, but you wouldn’t put it past them.

Basically, its like the Norwegians have written on their Bandcamp page:

Do you love:

– 1950s rock’n’roll and rockabilly?

– 1960s garage rock and early punk?

– 1970s rock, punk and heavy metal?

– 1980s speed, thrash and metal?

– 1990s rediscovery of all this?

Well, do you!?

The Gasölines do. So they’ve written another album full of it.

There’s four of them. They’ve all got the surname Gasöline (the family must be very proud, And they appear to exist solely as a vehicle (word deliberately chosen) to get as many lead guitar breaks as they can in a song. “Rum Runner 500” has about 3,000,000 to set the benchmark, as Sindre Gasöline merrily explains that “I serve the juke joints”.  I never thought any other, mate.

“Grand Prix” is a boogie and a woogie, but its one in the most rancid strip club you can imagine. “Dragstrip Inferno” is not only the best song title of the year, it gets bonus points for kicking off with a guitar solo.

And what does it actually sound like? Well, pretty much like the description above to be truthful, but to nail it down more, then the debut Hellacopters record, if it was sung by Zeke and if they’d listened to Motorhead instead of Kiss. “Raceway War” is your proof of that, frankly,

We like to have some fun with it, but don’t let that get in the way of the fact there are some genuinely brilliant songs here. Thunderously good. “Hellbreaker” reasons that there hasn’t been enough AC/DC on the rest of it, so remedies that, and just in case there was any doubt that my man Adrian Gasöline was the king of riffs, then “Snakebite” ends the argument. “Relentless venom” offers Sindre, in his best Lemmy here, and no one is really sure why. But it’s ace.

It’s all ace, solely because this is a band that simply loves what they do and if they weren’t in a band like this, they’d be watching one. Probably not as good. “Burnin’ Dice” get sounds-like-the-Wildhearts bonus points and “Welcome To Hell” (the perfect accompaniment for my discussions with Beelzebub as to future arrangements) is the sort of thing Hells Angels walk down the aisle too.

“Sunset Boulevard” is proper tear jerking ballad. Ok, its not, but it’s got a middle bit that slows things down a touch…..and just for grins “Devil In Me” does it all again. Cos it can. Cos it must.

“Death Or Eternal Glory” is pure escapism. Like I am about to swap my Honda Civic for an even more boring Renault Coupe, but in my head I am driving the General Lee from The Dukes Of Hazard. This album is for all of this that think that way.

Rating 9/10

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