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 Speedealer
Burned Alive
Radical Records
Jeff Hirshburg (guitar), Eric Schmidt (Guitar) and Harden
Harrison on drums collectively make up Dallas Texas’
Speedealer. They’ve recently released a live CD called
Burned Alive recorded at CBGB’s in NYC on the Fourth
of July this past year. Chronicling songs from the past four
Speedealer releases as well as “Rock and Roll”
from their newest Bleed, Burned Alive captures the fire and
fury that is Speedealer caught in the act live. High-energy
hard-hitting rock and roll rages forth from your stereo’s
speakers once the CD has been assimilated into your player.
The first four songs, starting with “Hit It And Run,”
blow by in rapid succession, the short brutal songs easily
segueing into one another. The album keeps getting hotter
and hotter as the track numbering increases. My personal favorites
on this disc are the twisted blues opening of “Absinthe”,
the self-hating “Kill Myself” and of course “Drink
Me Dead.” The songs on this live platter run the gamut
from speed metal thrash to punk and don’t disappoint
from one to the next. Burned Alive is out now on Radical Records,
go get your fix.
--Texatronic
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|  TKEELHAUL
Subject to Change Without Notice
Hydrahead
Keelhaul
from Ohio (Cleveland?) was hailed as a "peer" influence
by Philadelphia's Stinking Lizaveta in their R&R interview.
Track one projects the image of an escaped monster stomping
on houses in long-awaited vengeance. The music quickly moves
from straight-up heavy to chaotic. Between the labels this
band has been slapped with, I would choose "short attention
span music" over "metal" - though there are
some guitar riffs and embellishments that could qualify as
metallic. Mostly instrumental, it's very tricky in structure
with random time changes and non-traditional form (no verse-chorus
here). The sparse vocals are non-melodic (yelling) and not
especially skilled, but not without character. The overall
sound seems to originate from dark, mature and intelligent
personalities.
Decent variety and dynamics, solid musicianship, and good
energy. The production is good, appealing to my taste with
subtlety and the clarity of each instrument - as opposed to
current trends in "wall of mush" amplification and
mixing. The more experimental, spacey/moody tracks are the
ones I would put on my party tape.
This CD is not metal enough to blast me across the room (head
not banging, songs not sticking), but it has potential to
grow on me. Like Stinking Lizaveta, Keelhaul would likely
be more interesting live than they are on disc.
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Bek Sabbath |
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 Full
Service
S/T
(2003)
Dispassionate, droning, incessant music comes out of my speakers-quite
disappointing. I really had high expectations for this CD.
With such charmingly, creative song titles like "Goonies,"
"Speak Chinese" and "Surf Symphony," one
would think this album could offer more than humdrum, meaningless
rock mingled with really bad rap interludes. But my friends,
good song titles do not a good album make.
The singing lacked so much enthusiasm. How can this band ever
expect anyone else to want to listen to their music? The songs
just sound so unintentionally depressing, making me want to
crawl under the covers and never have to face the world ever
again. The lyrics from the song "Fall Asleep" really
sum up this band perfectly: "Is anybody out there, wave
if you can, you're out with all the water, I'm waiting on
the land, just flash a light or something a message in a can,
a bottle, whatever, to wash upon the sand." It makes
me feel so all alone.
The guitar music not much help either-it made me want to weep
incessantly. Seriously, how does depressing, dispirited music
mix with rap music of any kind anyway? I never heard the connection
and would venture that most people wouldn't either. It just
sounds like two very different groups (and neither sound good
individually) got together and exploded into one awful noisy
mess.
If you suffer from insomnia, like myself, this album will
be a great relief to you. Just pop it in, and trust me, in
moments you will be drifting off to sleep, if not crying your
eyes out in misery. So, the only really good reasons to purchase
this album is if a) you can't sleep b) maybe you need a good
cry or c) you think I am being too heartless and really are
curious as to what this band sounds like.
-Misty Sweet |
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Smoke
Smoke Follows Beauty The
painting of a naked lady with snakes crawling all over her
on the cover of Smoke's latest CD likely provides the first
clue as to what lies inside. With the exception of a few creepy
departures, this is a pretty straightforward, no bullshit
rock and roll CD. The tracks are filled with plenty of tasty
guitar riffs and enough widdely woos and chunckety chunks
to satisfy the dirtiest guitar rock jones. I hate it when
CD reviews fall back on comparisons to other more well-known
artists, so I'll do my best to always avoid that. That said,
Smoke's sound and particularly their vocals have obviously
been influenced by some old school heavies. Sometimes influences
can be really cool, especially when there's a clear evolution
taking place. After the third track I'm convinced this is
one such example. In between the head-rippin' tunes there's
some pretty creepy stuff that I'm not quite sure how to describe.
Imagine having drank way too much stale, bad, cold, black
coffee and having to carry a heavy ass guitar across a dark
city in the middle of winter when it's so late that not even
the buses are running. There are some attempts at going epic
on a few cuts but these flights are tempered by tons of solid
grooves. What can I say, I'm partial to fuzzy, sloppy guitar
chops that are played that way cause that's just the way he
likes it. Yeah my head is still throbbing, but fuck it, pass
me the Jack Daniels and let's finish off these cigarettes
before we run out of tape. Let her rip, boys.
-
Lee Ahlbrandt
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