Review: Skid Row, "The Gang's All Here"

 I didn’t see this coming.

Like many fans, I’ve longed for a reunion of the original lineup of Skid Row. While I enjoyed some of the band’s work with replacement vocalist, the late Johnny Solinger, it never quite stacked up with their earlier output. It’s become pretty clear, though, that the chasm between former vocalist Sebastian Bach and the rest of the band is too wide to bridge. So, I never expected to get a new Skid Row record that I considered on par with those first three albums.

Enter Erik Gronwall, former vocalist of the band H.E.A.T., a lifelong Skid Row fan despite being born only a couple of years before their debut album. His version of the band’s hit “18 and Life” on a Swedish TV singing competition helped earn him the nod from Skid Row after they went through a series of replacement vocalists for Solinger, including Tony Harnell (TNT) and ZP Theart (Dragonforce), and they seem to have made the right choice. Gronwall breathes new life into the band. He sounds enough like a young Bach to hit old guys like me right in the nostalgia, but he also brings enough of his own sound to not give off the tribute vibe.

Review: Ward Davis, "Live from an Undisclosed Location in Hays, Kansas"

The story behind Ward Davis’ latest live album is almost as entertaining as the record itself. Back in 2017, he and his friend, fellow underground country singer Cody Jinks, were playing a show in Hays, Kansas. The previous night, they had played in Colorado, so they were well stocked on, um, herbal remedies.

After the show, Davis was hanging out by his van behind the venue while his bass player was inside the van partaking of said herbal remedies when one of Hays’ finest (alternately “Officer Asshole” and “Officer Tough Guy” in Davis’ words) knocked on the door of the van. The bass player threw the doors open while lighting up, the van was searched and Davis and his bass player ended up being put in cuffs for possession of just under an ounce of marijuana.

As Davis and his bandmate were being marched the full block from the venue to be booked at the courthouse, Jinks emerged from the building and proceeded to cuss the cops all the way to bailing Davis out, much to the chagrin of Davis and one of Jinks’ band members who were attempting to calm the situation. Davis ultimately ended up with a good story and some unsupervised probation. That’s the short version. It’s definitely worth reading Davis’ version, though.

Review: Whiskey Myers, "Tornillo"

Whiskey Myers has never been shy about letting their roots show in their music, but on their latest release, they put them on display like a piece of fine art in a museum.

Tornillo takes the listener across the landscape of American music. There is, of course, plenty of their rowdy traditional Southern rock, but they also get a little funky, take a trip to the country, roll around in the blues and even dip their toes into arena rock – albeit very twangy arena rock.

I have to admit to being slightly disappointed with the band’s 2019 eponymous album2019 eponymous album, which was, at times, a little too much rock and not enough Southern. But the lead single from Tornillo, “John Wayne,” immediately announced that while we’d see a few new tricks with this latest evolution of Whiskey Myers, it would be well grounded in where they come from. The song opens with a funky, thumping bass line from Jamey Gleaves before vocalist Cody Cannon joins in on harmonica, kicking off a Southern groover with plenty of flash from the horns and female backing vocals that are both new touches.

Review: Alestorm, "Seventh Rum of a Seventh Rum"

The pirate ship has been righted and is back on course.

I’ve been a fanboy and evangelist for Alestorm since their debut album Captain Morgan’s Revenge in 2008. Christopher Bowes and his goofy band of pirates have put plenty of smiles on my face, and I’ve shouted the band’s praises from the rooftops so loudly that a lot of people I talk music with regularly have probably wished they could make me walk the plank.

Their last lackluster outing, Curse of the Crystal Coconut, left me scratching my head by putting far more emphasis on the goofy than the pirate – and just honestly not featuring many memorable moments. But, hey, 2020 was a rough year for everyone. And so was 2021, particularly for Bowes who became embroiled in some controversy around one of his other bands, Gloryhammer. But in 2022, the world, and the seas, have opened back up. Bowes takes to them with gusto.

Review: Zeal & Ardor, "Zeal & Ardor"

When a band gets classified as black metal, that’s usually going to be a hard pass. The label conjures up a certain stereotype, I suppose, that just doesn’t appeal to me. I imagine an album that sounds like it was captured on a shoebox recorder in someone’s basement, guitars that sound like angry bees and a guy in corpse paint screaming in an incoherent rasp about Satan. I expect songs that are linear with little melody and certainly nothing so mundane as a chorus or hook.

Yes, I know that’s a broad generalization of the genre and not truly representative of everything it contains, but that’s what immediately comes to mind.

There are plenty of exceptions, but none quite as exceptional as Zeal & Ardor. In fact, I wouldn’t call them black metal at all, but that seems to be the general consensus. There are elements of the music present, certainly, with occasional buzzing guitars and screams, and there’s the general disdain for religion that permeates black-metal lyrics. But there’s so much more at play here, including blues, soul and, strangely enough, a heavy gospel influence.