The Bloody Hollies have the best band name I've heard in the last ten years. I get images of a deranged Graham Nash feeding on the corpse of Buddy Holly whenever I hear it. The music lives up to the name. This is just the kind of ass kicking transcendental musical medication the world never gets enough of. It's rock and roll distilled to its essence; 100 proof savage punk rock libation liberation. Just a bar fight waiting to happen. This Buffalo, New York band have just put out a new album called If Footmen Tire You... that should vanquish any sad thoughts you've been thinking lately and inflame your good ones.
They're raw and primitive as it should be. "Watch Your Head" is a thumping, humping prototypical rocker stumping for the party of rock and it gets my vote. There's heat coming off it in waves and just when you think the tempo and tension can't get any higher the next song, "We're So Anxious" turns the dial up another notch. This one goes up to 11. The Michael Argento powered drums and Phillip Freedenburg bass go on the prowl for the bridge of "Gasoline" while guitarist and vocalist Wesley Doyle takes a short break. It's hypnotic and powerful because you just know that when Doyle rejoins them the song is going to be exponentially more explosive than before. It's a simple trick in dynamics that some bands never bother to learn.
They make like a harder edged Mummies with the nervous energy of "Right Between The Eyes" which features a spidery guitar riff framing the song like a web. "Cut It Loose" is cruddy, muddy, and bloddy good stuff. The album is all exposed nerves with razor sharp tight lines that never let up. There is even potential for power pop lurking with "Infatuation Of The Girl" which might have been a good Undertones song 25 years ago. There's a definite hint of Feargal Sharkey in Doyle's voice when he's really singing.
He mainly sticks to yelling and it matches the songs to perfection. He treats his guitar like a weapon, too. "Dirty Water" (not The Standells song" hits with a physical force. The last song "Raised By Wolves" uses some deft slide guitar to bring the album to a fitting ending. It was produced by Jim Diamond in Detroit and he gives the album a gritty Seventies abandoned muscle car tone. If Footmen Tire You... by The Bloody Hollies is out now on Alive Records.
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