Another of Sweden’s Burning Heart Record’s top performes, the BOMBSHELL ROCKS are back with this effort. Released to coincide with a BH tour, this is their latest offering.
The atmospheric intro track sets the scene with a nice slow buildup which soon crashes headlong into ‘Begging For Mercy’. It’s a straight out, kickass punk rock tune with some really good vocals and riffing. It’s one of my favourite tracks on the album because it’s fast paced and frenetic, but the pace is slowed down with the next number, ‘On My Way’. It seems as the the ‘Rocks are trying really hard to appeal to the Transatlantic market with lines like “Wanna roll into the sunset in a ’56 Chevrolet” but it still sounds genuine. It’s heartfelt and passionate with a nice drop which develops into an ‘arms around your mates’ moment. Quality stuff.
The title track is yet another impressive poppy punk song, as is ‘Warpath’ yet while they’re all very good songs, there isn’t much hardcore: it’s all very melodic. Obviously this isn’t a bad thing since as I’ve mentioned, the songs are top drawer material but you’d expect something a bit more hard-edged.
Good thing then that ‘Almost Free’ is a rollicking homage to positivity in the punk scene. It’s so musically similar to a Bad Religion song that you’d be forgiven for thinking it was indeed by Gurewitz’s band of merry men. Needless to say, this is a compliment of the highest order and the vocal harmonies are just fantastic.
It’s a bit of a shame that the chorus in ‘My Own War’ sounds a bit happy-clappy and Toploader-esque when the rest of the song is so good. Oh well, can’t have everything. ‘Untitled’ is much in the vein of previous songs on the album, not too taxing but a good ride, but it all goes a bit country and western on ‘By The Blink Of An Eye’. It’s the perfect soundtrack to John Wayne riding over the plain to the ranch, but it’s just a tad arse and sounds like The Vandals when they did an album of lame country songs.
The final song on the album ‘Cheated Again’ sounds like a random American band writing the theme song of a random tv series but manages to be really very good. That seems to be a common theme of the album: musically it’s very derivative but each song succeeds in sounding original and punchy. The pace is only slackened a couple of times for the more emotional songs but the quality is consistent. A solidly entertaining album and one I’d recommend to anyone.
BEN