Put
your hands up for Detroit! Italian fuzz-rockers tribute to Rock City.
Detroit has long been
recognized as the spiritual home for all things gritty, dirty and
deranged in rock 'n' roll. Ever since The Stooges and MC5 burst on
the the global scene after formulating their sounds in the Motor City
there's been a steady stream of bands in their wake carrying on that
legacy. From Alice Cooper to The Gories, Suzi Quattro to The White
Stripes, they've all shared a love for stripped-to-the-bone hard rock
delivered with humour and intelligence. Ditto Killer Boogie, whose
blues-rock roots are souped up like a custom muscle car.
Killer Boogie don't hail from Detroit but they would make good
adopted sons. Instead they hail from Rome, a city more renowned for
its Colosseum and Sistene Chapel than it is for hard riffing rock
music. The three-piece band are something of a supergroup, featuring
Gabriele Fiori on guitars and vocals (
Black Rainbows), Luigi
Costanzo on drums (
The Wisdoom), and Matteo Marini on bass (though
Eduardo Mancini played bass on these studio recordings.)
This cross
fertilization of bands from the Heavy Psych Sounds roster results in
an album that fits perfectly with the label's ethos and aesthetic.
HPS is already a label with a strongly defined identity, one that
this record reinforces via its proto-grunge and metal. Detroit may be
a record of very fixed genre but that's most certainly the point.
After all, you don't go to a pizzeria and ask for sushi! So expect
some hard rock with a distinctly early '70s hue.
Much like the almost
fabled city of the album's title, the record's spirit is one of
rebellion, fused with a separateness from the wider musical world.
Economically Detroit has been on the decline since its car producing
heyday, a city that's both proud and haunted by its golden era.
Similarly rock music's purple patch is commonly thought to be the
early '70s, so it's in some way fitting that Killer Boogie echo those
classic sounds.
That era saw the
beginning of rock's love affair with guitar pedals, when pushing the
limits of volume, speed and virtuosity was at the forefront of most
denim clad musician's minds. Detroit shares all those
fascinations and then some. Busy guitar solos and fuzzed-up riffs
abound. It says much about the state of contemporary music when such
sonic time travel can reward more than today's state of the art
releases.
No wonder then that
each new generation eventually discovers the music made by Led
Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy et al. Thank goodness there's a
new breed of contemporary bands making music that carries a similarly
heavy punch. Hats off to Killer Boogie and Heavy Psych Sounds for
flying the flag for all things heavy!
