Breed 77 - Cultura (2004)

As is probably apparent from this website, I’m not overly concerned with post-1990s rock, indeed my overriding interest is in the ‘classic’ 1970s-1980s period which I believe saw the genre at its most creative and inventive. However, on recommendation I gave Breed 77’s 2004 release Cultura a listen and was pleasantly surprised. The album is both heavy and contemporary-sounding but also a little bit different from the norm which appealed.

The band are from Gibraltar and have developed an interesting mix of Spanish scales and structures with System Of A Down style in your face heaviness: no mean feat!

The album opens with Voices, a powerful opener in a fairly straight rock style with only the scale used for the guitar solo belying the bands flamenco influences. Track 2, Individuo, is an all-out rock belter too – uptempo and loud!

La Ultima Hora features flamenco guitar throughout the verse with the bridge and chorus being out and out rock riffing. A Matter Of Time features a slightly retro riff, which is great, and World’s Of Fire features some good harmony guitar work.

The River opens with Spanish guitar and occupies the more anthemic ballad rock style as the rest of the band kick-in. Good light and shade is apparent on the album however, with The Only Ones opening with a sledgehammer riff and some nice percussive touches from Óscar Preciado Zamora.

Resurrection, once more, opens with a Spanish guitar ‘riff’ which returns throughout before the album mellows with Numb, an acoustic guitar and vocal track that rests the ears well before Calling Out which is a thunderous track played with a real sense of urgency.

Eyes That See is a somewhat ‘filler’ number but things really pick up for Oracion Final which begins with a syncopated Spanish guitar riff and drum pattern and is sung in Spanish. The conversion of the ‘flamenco’ riff to electric guitar riff works well and the track moves back and forth between acoustic and electric guitar.

The final track is an acoustic version of Breaking The Silence – the original appearing on their debut album in 2005: Breed 77. As you would expect, there’s some neat flamenco runs in here too.

Whilst a marriage of styles I’d never have envisaged, flamenco and metal works very well and Breed 77 use it wisely and don’t overplay the Spanish influence to the point of it becoming a novelty act. The band are very heavy in part but have the musical nous to appreciate that track after track of blunt power can become dull and vary the intensity and approach from track to track, and within tracks, giving variety and something new to the listener.

If you’re into your Korn, System Of A Down, Linkin’ Park and . . . erm, Paco de Lucía – or feel like hearing something a little bit different from the norm – this is the album for you!

• Paul Isola – Vocals
• Danny Felice – Guitar
• Stuart Cavilla – Bass
• Pedro Caparros López – Guitar
• Óscar Preciado Zamora – Drums

Bubble - How 'Bout This? (2000)

Low-Fi grunge punk act Bubble are somewhat of a well-kept secret in musical circles, enjoying minor-league cult status in the US with next to no exposure in the UK and ploughing a lonely furrow of self produced albums, videos and publicity whilst being largely ignored, well completely ignored, by the mainstream music press. When you consider the band on How ’bout This? comprised of ex-Vixen bassist Share Pedersen on vocals and guitar, ex-Dogs D’Amour drummer Bam Ross and ex-Faster Pussycats Eric Stacy and Brent Muscat, the apparent lack of exposure seems rather odd!

That said, to get the most from How ’bout This? you really need to put aside any preconceptions as to the style of music you’re about to hear based on the aforementioned band member’s pedigrees as Bubble are most certainly NOT of glam metal styling. Largely a vehicle for Share Pedersen and her now-husband Bam, Bubble offer a heavily stripped-down, punky Nirvana-esque sound with Share handling guitar and vocals on short, snappy rock tracks with no frills.

Opening track Shake has a grinding riff and Ross’s vocals are husky and growled throughout Don’t Talk To Me is one of the standout tracks with, again, a deep and grinding riff but this time with a more memorable hook with a simple but effective guitar solo mid-way through. In fact, I think that simple but effective best sums up Bubble’s overall sound and approach – and I mean that in a good way!

Independently Wasted has a bit of a mid-70s Bowie feel to it – you could certainly imagine the late Mick Ronson playing on it – and does give reason to wonder why Bubble register under the radar of mainstream music success.

All I Want is a move to a more commercial approach – albeit one of the territory once occupied by The Breeders – which is followed by Sex Sells which opens with Bam playing a beat which bears no resemblance to that of the song proper when it kicks-in! The actual song is a slow burner, following the good old mantra of light and dark so well plundered by the Pixies and Nirvana sometime later and no less well-executed by Bubble here.

Sparklestar opens with a melancholy piano over which Share Pedersen sings a more straight forward melodic verse minus the growl that dominates her vocals elsewhere and is a track for which Bubble won the prestigious Song of the Year Award in the John Lennon Song writing Contest . . . again, surely such recognition should have broken the band into the big time? Furthermore, this is a sweeping, well-composed and executed ballad and well-deserving of the accolade it won.

Drug features a crashing chord riff and creates an incredibly dense sound during the chorus akin to the Pixies in full flight and is one of the more aggressive numbers on the album. Goin’ Down For You drops the mood to a mellow more mainstream commercial sound and chorus hook – although the subject matter would probably render Bubble unlikely to be requested to perform it on Letterman any day soon!

6000 Miles is one of the weaker numbers on the album but Eye follows with a very deep, ominous riff which persists throughout with Pedersen growling and snarling her vocals from start to finish. Apart from the odd thump now and again from Bam, the track is a guitar/vocal piece throughout.

And talking of Bam, in he comes with an up-tempo beat leading into Baby Lately with Share Pedersen taking the role of backing vocals for this track. Then it’s to all-out punk territory with Slut Motorchopper but, I stress, not in the corporate bloated Green Day way but a stripped-down retro-punk feel mixed with a bit of sleaze for good measure.

Kickin’ Walls is another up-tempo number with and would have been good single fodder as it’s melodically strong throughout both verse and chorus and is one of the strongest tracks on the album. Castle Hill follows in a similar vein and leads into the closing track Lullaby which is an acoustic-guitar led track with Pedersen once again dropping the ‘growl’ in favour of singing delicately over the mellow guitar melody. Nice to hear a band buck convention too by closing an album with their most mellow number!

I’m not sure quite what went wrong here – well, to be honest, everything about Bubble is wrong from my perspective: Share Pedersen dropped the glam of Vixen to front a punk/grunge band, Bam from Dogs D’Amour was on drums (saw them many terms back in the day and hated the whole ’sleaze’ schtick) and in spite of being award-winning they’ve achieved virtually negligible success. However, in the face of this Bubble are a great band producing solid, no messing around low-fi rock tracks with ease with How ’bout This beings a very strong album indeed and one I’d definitely recommend!

• Share Pedersen – Guitar/Vocals
• Brent Muscat – Guitar
• Eric Stacy – Bass
• Bam – Drums

Platinum Weird - Taking Chances (2006)

Now, rather a well-kept secret – in large part due to a somewhat misguided publicity ’stunt’ – Platinum Weird have produced two albums to date that feature different versions of largely the same tracks.

As the keen-eyed amongst you will have noticed, the album cover above does not match the one displayed on the MP3 sample playlist and link below. This is due to the version below being the readily available version of the album whereby the band were masquerading as a ‘forgotten’ 1970’s group, whilst the above, and in my opinion vastly superior, version is the band as themselves.

The project was a vehicle for ex-Eurythmic Dave Stewart and songwriter and later to be American Idol judge, Kara Dioguardi . . . and a fine project it was too. The version of the album where they are playing it straight contains some amazing vocals from Ms Dioguardi – a telented singer and songwriter: something not immediately apparent from her prattlings on American Idol – on modern, power rock stylings that should have, and indeed would have, made an impact on the music scene had it not been for their initial marketing ploy which fell flat on its face.

There’s plenty of loud guitars and powerful vocals coupled with a modern production and songwriting style that makes for compulsive listening. And yes, the actual track ‘Taking Chances’ was covered by Celine Dion but don’t let that put you off – Dioguardi sings it impeccably throughout.

The version from which the MP3s were taken, however, is a a rather limp attempt at seemingly creating a syrupy Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac sound with Dioguardi ‘playing the part’ of supposed original vocalist Erin Grace . . . the word ’suptid’ definitely springs to mind.  If you have a band with two accomplished songwriters and musicians, gimmicks are rather pointless – a perspective that rang true with the record buying public who largely ignored the release.

The ‘good’ version of the album appears only to be available with the ‘bad’ version of the album so although I would recommend the former, make sure you are getting the version that comes with the bonus disc!

• Kara DioGuardi – Vocals
• Dave Stewart – Guitar

Steel Panther - Feel the Steel (2009)

At last, the saviours of metal have arrived with tongue firmly planted in cheek and enough old-school 80s riffs to blow your hat off! Feel The Steel is the debut album from Steel Panther and is a barnstorming effort from start to finish featuring every musical hair metal cliche in the book and ‘Parental Advisory’ lyrics which, in parts, made me laugh out loud: I can’t recommend this highly enough. Musically the album is very strong as you would expect from a band featuring metal veterans Guitar Institute of Technology instructor and ex-Fight guitarist Russ Parrish and L.A. Guns vocalist Ralph Saenz, aka Satchel and Michael Starr.

In my opinion Steel Panther succeed where others failed – such as The Darkness (from whom Justin Hawkins appears on backing vocals for Party All Day) – largely on two counts: firstly, the lyrics (if a little banal) are funny and secondly, that the music is of a very high standard – the band haven’t compromised on the musicianship and songwriting and relegated it to second-place behind the humour/irony . . . something of which a few other bands should take note!

For the sake of Tipper Gore filing a lawsuit, I won’t provide a track by track breakdown of the album but must mention a few of the many highlights. The album opens with the single release Death To All But Metal which is a standout metal anthem bemoaning the absence of bands such as Def Leppard and Motley Crue whilst heavily slagging contemporary mainstream artists (see the video below) and, whilst the lyrics are rather childish (a fact not lost on the band who ask “why do all my lyrics sound like Dr Zeuss?”), I do find myself endorsing their sentiments to a large extent! Track 2, Asian Hooker, has some fine lyrical moments too and mixes a naive Asian Melody with a powerful, thumping rock riff to good effect.

Where the band may make few friends in the industry is with their ’so-close’ parodies of major rock hits. Party All Day, for example, has distinct similarities to Bon Jovi’s Living On A Prayer – but in this instance is about venereal disease and a rock n’ roll lifestyle of a waster: “smoke and drink and screw, that’s what I was born to do”.

Even closer to the knuckle is Girl From Oklahoma which is very nearly More Than Words by Extreme, however I won’t even begin to discuss the subject matter but let’s just say it’s not of the same ‘touching ballad’ sentiments of Extreme.

Of course, as you would expect from a hair metal band, there’s a classic ballad. Here that honour falls to Community Property: “if you were a hooker you’d know i’d be happy to pay. If suddenly you were a guy, I’d be suddenly gay” – almost brings a tear to the eye!

As said at the outset, the thing that really makes it work is that if you substituted the lyrics for more ‘mainstream’ ones, every track would still be a cracker and would easily sit alongside some of the greats of the era being lampooned. Some of the lead guitar work too is exceptional and follows various styles which is no mean feat in itself with Parrish soloing in the styles of Richie Sambora and even the neo-classical noodlings of Malmsteen with great aplomb.

Definitely worth purchasing for great, poweful rock tracks and a good laugh at the same time . . . unless you’re under 18 of course, in which case seek parental advice!

• Michael Starr – Vocals
• Satchel – Guitars
• Lexxi Foxxx – Bass
• Stix Zadinia – Drums