HardReviews 3
by Martin Popoff
Dirty Rig - Blood, Sweat And Beer
(TMC)Here's something you don't see too often: a six track EP with a bonus DVD, featuring three video tracks, songs from the EP performed live in a club, decent production standards but no big deal. Cool disc though (title's been more or less done before though), Dirty Rig being yer standard redneck rockers (GTO reads like an Auto Trader ad of one), but with more swagger than usual. Sounds like Black Label Society crossed with Four Horsemen, save for Two, which oddly chops and changes like System Of A Down. Doesn't fit but damn well done, the whole thing sounding like a more basic, sleaze rock version of what American Dog's been taking to the bank.
Rating 7Thundertrain - Teenage Suicide
(Gulcher)Well, everything eventually gets reissued, donnit? Thundertrain were a scrappy Boston party rock band who put this one record out, on Jelly Records in 1977 (mine was white vinyl). The sound is like a badly produced version of New York Dolls, with less metal riffs, more glam, more boogie woogie, a weird, wholly unintended I'm sure, dose of hard southern rock. Vocalist (shouter? stylist?) Mach Bell would end up on the really bad last Joe Perry Project album. In any event, this is a really nice reissue - albeit mutton dressed up as lamb - with a huge set of liner notes, four short Q&A interviews, a ton of rare pictures (it's all rare with this band), a radio interview, a radio ad and four dodgy bonus tracks. Basically competitors with the likes of DMZ and Reddy Teddy, it was all over pretty quickly for these high skool rawkers. Aerosmith was the blueprint I'm sure, but the quality level falls way short. I dunno, look at it through NYC punk-coloured glasses and something nostalgically whimsical might be salvaged for you. Email gulcherrecords@aol.com or cowboybeeps@excite.com for more info.
Rating 5.5
