Here's a trivia question. How many bands can you think of that have a preposition in their name? Besides HIGH ON FIRE and KARMA TO BURN and a couple of Finnish bands, I’m stuck. These guys are from Iowa, and I believe they’re named after some famous book about an everyday schmo that gets to assume the role of the grim reaper. I’ll have to read it once I get through my ever-growing pile of nonfiction.

The songs on this (the band’s second) disc are largely a modern twin-guitar take on 70s cowbell worship, its essence exceedingly far from the dull QOTSA-wannabe sameness that can plague the genre, yet not entirely without studio spit shine. Luckily, we reluctant members of the review staff are spared much of the ‘return of real rock’ chatter by the band’s press kit. Such claims are always a turnoff, so thankfully they’ve left it out. Rock does not need saving, and if it did, its messiah would be found fixing machines in a bowling alley, not flittering across your screen in popup ads.

“Amplify the Circle” is a catchy, 70s-style pulse, ringing with superb vocals from singer Aaron Peltz. The track is an excellent, albeit verse/chorus/verse-y representation for the band’s overall sound on the disc. “King Brimstone” changes gears from a midpaced desert rock tumble to a total riff breakout in the vein of ZZ TOP’s “Tush”. Of the eleven tracks represented here, only “No Eagle Lies In Potter's Field” loses footing, as what should be a perfect “Johnny the Fox” type of intro actually gets stretched into a 4-minute tension dropper of an instrumental.

On the whole, the album is a swaggering modern classic, its gusto vibrating from the echoes of RAGING SLAB and CLUTCH. In other words, real rock has been saved!

- Marchman

OFFICIAL SITE: www.onapalehorse.com

MP3 SOUND SCRAP: Ride the Wind

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