Tuesday, February 2, 2016

MONSTER TRUCK: "Sittin' Heavy"

Rating: RRRR
Label: Mascot Records/Mascot Label Group
Review by: Martien Koolen

 Monster Truck is a sensational "new" rock band from Canada. They have released two EPs and their debut album called Furiosity (2013) so far, and now this Canadian rockquartet release their follow up album called Sittin' Heavy. On 29 October of last year you could already enjoy their highly contagious first single Don't Tell Me How To Lve from this new album. The music of Monster Truck is a blend of blues rock, southern rock, hard rock, Canadian rock and stoner rock with lots of catchy, heavy grooves, sludge and vintage sounds. Most of the 11 songs on this new album are high energy up tempo tracks with catchy choruses and lots of sometimes very recognisable guitar riffs and hooks.

The album kicks off with the swampy, dirty, "punky" up tempo Why Are You Not Rocking?, featuring raw vocals and a short, mean, fast guitar solo. Next up is the beforementioned first single of the album; a song that sounds familiar but then again also very original. Don't Tell Me How To Live has great lyrics, is also very melodic and has a very, very catchy chorus. Sittin' Heavy also contains two slower songs, being: Black Forest and Enjoy The Time; both songs can be labelled as "power ballads" and both feature amazing, emotional vocals, catchy melodies and excellent guitar passages and solos. Enjoy The Time, the longest track on the album, reminds me of Souhern rock heroes Lynyrd Skynyrd, which is due to the melody and the electric piano parts. To The Flame is also one of my favourites as it is filled with short, but tricky guitar solos and it is really an addictive, heavy song in the veins of Alice in Chains.

The other songs are all excellent glorious hard rock statements, altough New Soul (ZZ Top like?) is perhaps the most mediocre song of the album. Best tracks without any doubt: Black Forest, New Soul, Enjoy The Time, Why Are You Not Rocking? and the first single; turn up the volume, start headbanging and screaming along and you will love this album. And I would like to end this review with a quote of Slash about this amazing band: "Monster Truck is one of the few really great down to earth rock 'n roll bands..they're hard, soulful and heavy." I could not agree more; buy or die fellows!

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