Admittedly, I don’t always give the music sent to me to review an initial “blind” listen—in other words, not knowing anything about the band thereby preventing prejudice in the review process. Well, this one actually did get a blind listen (after about 10 minutes of cracking up over their name, that is). Although I couldn’t place who was who in the band, I did reach one conclusion: these guys must be old. And since they’re on a label like Lion Music, that must mean that they’re important. Turns out I was right, at least with the two guys in the band who don’t happen to be Swedish hired hands. The old guy doing the singing happens to be Nicky Moore, the guy who replaced Bruce in SAMSON. The old guy playing the guitar happens to be Manny Charlton, who was the guitarist and main songwriter for some band you may have heard of from the 70s called NAZARETH.

Obviously this isn’t music for the youngins. The name of the game here is simple, bare-bones blues rock. Manny’s style doesn’t seem to have really changed at all in 30 years, and Nicky’s heavy, soulful style is at least as convincing as BOB SEGER ever was. There’s also a fair variety of songs to be found here too: powerful old-school rockers like “Queen Bitch” and “Family” to a stronger blues style like on “Play Dirty” that gets a little creepy on “Boneman” and even a bit grungy on “Crutch”. However, the simplicity that’s this album’s selling point can at times become a drawback. For instance, the lyrics kind of suck. There are a ton of painful rhyming clichés, none more prevalent than on the ballad “Gone” (which sounds a bit too much like “Simple Man”) and the Titanic love story turned blues rock song called “Size Doesn’t Matter”. Also, the other ballad “Picture” is way too reminiscent of the KID ROCK ballad of the same name.

Still, for all the shortcomings of this CD, one still has to tip their hat to this type of band: just a bunch of guys getting together and jamming out of a bunch of songs—not because they have to, but just for the fun of it. Fans familiar with both Nicky and Manny’s previous work will certainly enjoy this one; anyone else will probably find it reminiscent of those hometown boys up on stage at the local bar. Then again, that’s pretty much the underlying motive here.

- Cardona

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