STONE AXE: "Stone Axe"

Rating: 5/10

Label: Ripple Music 2011

Review by: Urban "Wally" Wallstrom

"The type of Rock N Roll that will make you feel nostalgic for the seventies". Huh? How can you feel "nostalgic" towards something which you never experienced in the first place??? I'll have to file this under "geezer" rock, then??? Well, Port Orchard, Washington, U.S. rockers Stone Axe were formed in direct homage to the classic heavy rock of the seventies, and mult-instrumentalist, sometime-vocalist, princicpal songwriter and recording engineer, T.Dallas Reid, wouldn't have it any other way.

The band's supposed to encompass the tones, moods and attitude, essentially perserving the sound of a by-gone era that brought some of the best heavy rock according to the band of course, yet still fusing modern elements to make the sound relevant for the future. Ehem, well, to be honest, it merely sounds like they don't know which foot to stand upon or in other words, 'we're desperately trying to lure old geezers and youngsters to buy our (schizo) CD'. The record label and the press-release, just as fookin' desperate, since they're trying to sell this as something for fans of and I quote: Led Zeppelin, Thin Lizzy, AC/DC, Free, Deep Purple, Bad Company, The Faces, Whitesnake. My oh my... I believe you're not supposed to laugh, but it's just sooo laughable. Sure, why not? let's namedrop every single band of the 70's and perhaps the buyers are stoopid enough to believe the write-up.

Okay, that's enough of hype and what about the music? Well, this is the debut album once again, now re-released in a deluxe editon CD package that includes a half hour of bonus live recordings, as well as more than 70 minutes of promotional videos and live footage that make up the bonus DVD. For your hard-earned money you get quite a lot of music and a few tunes knocked out by the band, not too shabby at all really. However, it's reeks of "desperation" and it's so "wrong" somehow. One minute you have a track inspired by AC/DC, the other it's something in the vein of Thin Lizzy, Bad Company, Stoner Rock, etc, etc. It's not a proper sound, it's like one of those after-ski bands doing their best to please every single person in/of the audience (probably all 18 of them). "There'd Be Days" is a smashing tune though and Dru Brinkerhoff is a great vocalist. Final verdict: Simply remove five of your different styles of music and try something close-to "original" for a change.

Website