So Mothersheep will keep you busy with 10 tracks for about 46 minutes. These tracks are sometimes quite substantial in their length for being rock’n’roll songs (they are often over 6 minutes long), but they are so juicy, infectious, involving, varied and enjoyable that you won’t realize that time is flowing away … The album includes only two tracks from the old Ep “In Fat We Trust”, i.e., the powerful opening track “We Choose Who Will Stand” and the fifth song “Road Pizza”, both cool choice. The rest of the album is brand new. By starting with the blistering track “We Choose Who Will Stand”, the band is immediately setting the rules of their game. What you’ve got here and in the rest of Mothersheep album is boiling-hot riff attacks at a tight pace by nicely distorted guitars/bass, dirty, sleazy blues-drenched melodies, southern and western atmospheres induced by occasional insertions of banjo and slide guitar sounds, cool gritty to acid vocals and alcoholic choirs, manly aggressive drumming, and a pulsating bass line that helps in making making the music solidly scarring your skin ... Basically old school heaviness and tons of southern groove rooted in early Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin as well as in Black Label Society, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Clutch, Kyuss, The Obsessed, Down, etc. The sound is roaring, rough and dirty thanks to the production which is just (im)perfect for this style of music.
As it may happen in these cases, while listening to the tunes you suddenly realize that you are actually wearing some long mustaches (definitely …), black leather gloves, tight leather trousers, you are driving a biiig motorbike and your boots are stained with dust from the desert and mud from a swamp. This is rock’n’roll for sweating. And if you happen to be teetotal, well, you’ll start feeling the need of an ice-cold beer … The subsequent track, kickass “Tex Mex”, is easygoing and almost winking to glam rock. The third track “Isaac's Wife Song” is developing its charge of groove via a relaxed, mid-slow paced rock rhythm, although tension is kept rather tight until you get into the short track “Unbalanced”. One minute-long “Unbalanced” will let you draw some deep breaths with its slow, soft, bluesy lullaby-like melody. Then you can get ready for “Road Pizza”, a badass, testosterone-drenched rock’n’roll blast lead by a rumbling drumming. The sixth track “My Crusade” starts in tricky soft, “desert-like” way but guitars will soon start roaring. This beautiful song is a quite high-energy track which, however, stands out from the previous fast tracks for its grungy component. It may just be my impression but I can catch some hints of aggressive grunge à-la-Soundgarden in both melodic lines and in Daniele’s vocal style. Daniele’s cool voice is gritty, slightly strained and warm at the same time and is sharing some features with Ozzy, Wino, as well as with Chris Cornell.
The seventh track “Take Some Pills” is a semi-acoustic western-flavoured ballad built up by choirs and acoustic guitar with occasional insertions of slide guitar and banjo sounds. It is a deeply gripping blues ballad lead by a cool overlap of voices and a melody immediately evoking a lonesome night chant at the fire in the desert or in the bayou. You feel like singing along … I can’t but find the same aching atmospheres as in some melancholic grunge ballads or better in that wonderful blues invocation called “Where I am Going” found in the second album by Down. The lively rhythms in the in track “No Country for Musicians” will bring you back from languishing dreaming and straight into total southern vibes with a slide guitar rock serenade as with those great jam bands from the other side of the ocean. What follows is the southern heavy and manly metallic vibe in the ninth track “Inhale” which is so recalling beloved Clutch … Awesome super-heavy riffs here, coupled with some killer vocal parts including some insertions of voice deformation (with Vocoder or something like that). The album is duly closed by the powerful track “Orange Blossoms and Four Swans”, a Bones & Comfort’s track that graced the Desert Sound vol. 4 compilation released by the Italian Perkele portal/webzine earlier this year (Here).
“Orange Blossoms and Four Swans”which will flood you with the last charge of high-octane riffs and coarse vocals (with guest vocalists Luigi Galmozzi and Andrea Maglia) in pure southern metal spirit. But then the trio will lead you into some great desert and blues/psychedelic jamming before the music will be lost into the void. Only deep, manly voices will be left repeating the refrain in a sort of choir halfway between alcoholic and blasphemous gospel …
Maybe it is time for some coffee now for your hangover …Get this kickass, heavy rocking album either at GoDown Records, at CdBaby or, better, from the band at one of their next hot gigs listed on the band’s websites!
Words: Marilena Moroni
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Video - Bones & Comfort - Orange Blossoms and Four Swans
