Tuesday, January 13, 2015

BONAFIDE: "Denim Devils"

Rating: RRr
Label: OffYerRocka/Border 2015
Review by: Urban "Wally" Wallstrom

Bonafide are clearly not reinventing the wheel here as the sound on "Denim Devils" can only and best be described as Ozzie Rock in the vein of Acca Dacca and Rose Tattoo. Well. That's the lazy and straight to the point reference anyhow. Rough and dirty, bluesy rock with the combination of a solid rhythm section, ragged vocals, and edgy guitar work without any of the fancy 1000-notes a minute widdling, and you're closer to the true core of the band. Awwww. What the hell. It's beer drinking - 'no-need-for-thinking' music.

In other words, you pretty much know what to expect by now if you're familiar with any of their previous four albums. It's a solid, but hardly spectacular record that if anything else fails should get the beers flying across the room. With tracks such as "Hold Down The Fort", the lads are at least admitting to their formula and staying true to their colours.

A couple of odd stand out tracks from their usual formula where "One Kiss" stick out as Weezer(s) at a Black Metal festival. Very quirky and poppy and similar to the debut album by Weezer. "Who Am I To Judge", the nearly funky guitar riff and your old school Stones refrain. The ballad of "Missing You" harks back to the heydays of Free and Bad Company. The groove of tracks like "The Game" impress initially but never really build on the moment and thus ending up sounding like Thunder without the bang (Thunder the band. Not your force of nature a.k.a. Thor in the sky).

Final verdict: Decent effort without the swagger of the truly great of the genre.
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