The ROCKFORD MULES: "Ma They Broke Me"

Rating: 8/10

Label: TSM/SLW 2011

Review by: Urban "Wally" Wallstrom

What the heck??? While I was listening to the opening couple of minutes off track one, "Mudfoot Barker", I honestly thought to myself, when did Beck record a hard rock album??? Seriously, an awful hoopla and racket going on there which merely can be described as something as the "I'm a loser" dude gone metal. The weirdest part of all... I immeditely kind of liked it and that's probably what scared (.scare) and scared (.scar) me the most. I guess you're not supposed to enjoy this kind of trippy-grungy seventies (stoner) rock if you're brought up with late eighties housegods such as Def Leppard and Whitesnake??? Oh feck off, it's only rock and roll and I can't help if you're a narrow-minded git and I like many different sorts of music?

These guys have more "soul" and personality than most of the "plastic" sounding albums coming out of the Frontiers factory as of lately. And more importantly, merely the opening track will have you seriously thinking about the loser dude (well, actually, track seven: "Hey John Wayne" - hello Beck!). It's otherwise ruff (simply b'cuz it's more fun to write words such as "ruff" and "tuff" than rough and tough) and rugged hard rocking music from Minneapolis/USA and their music has been licensed to several television networks and series including: Criminal Minds, The Real World, Keeping Up With The Kardashians, etc, etc.

So what? It's hardly their fault that utter crap tv-shows likes to keep on tap (instead of taps for something) when it comes to their music and they'd be stoopid to refuse. "Ma They Broke Me" is such a vivid record and you certainly need to spin this several times to get the hang of it. It's just a great mish-mash of rootsy, earthly blues rock (simply check out the mellow acoustic guitar tracks "Son Of Hammerswinger" and "Don't Tell Them What You've Seen"), grungy vibes 'ala early Soundgarden and Foo Fighters and also very commerical and catchy tunes such as "Hammerswinger" and the smashing title track. Unfortunately, this would also qualify as "hillbilly" and strickly redneck territorial metal music??? Nah, let's hope not as "Ma They Broke Me" kicks like mule to the head... Recommended.

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