Aggressive Chill - Aggressive Chill

Published April 26 2008

*=Staff's pick	Clean Thy Pipes* The Plague Is You Go Grey Diamonds Line 'Em Up* Hate Song* Quill Driver Retool Sidewalk Supertrip Rectify* No Hands Bar Meat Show Horse*

Genre	Metal	Willy	Vocals
Tracks	13	Willy	Guitar
Runningtime	45 Min.	Krille	Guitar
Label	Held Music	Robert	Bass
Release	16 May 2008	Tommie Rocker	Drums
Country	Sweden	-	Keyboard
Similar artists	Volbeat, Velvet Revolver, Soundgarden

These guys from Strömstad, Sweden, have got a nice blend of influences in their soup of metal. A little bit of grunge, as in Soundgarden and Alice In Chains. A little bit of later Metallica. A little bit of Mustasch. And perhaps a little bit of Denmark's Volbeat. So to wrap it up - it sounds like everything and nothing. But what I like the most is that there is no compromise in attitude, it is raw rock 'n' roll all the way. Actually not as given and common as one could think these days.

Clean Thy Pipes is simple rock 'n' Roll in the vein of Danko Jones and Mustasch. The first single Diamonds is a bit too soft and laid-back to really appeal to me. The strings in heavy and groovy Line 'Em Up make an ordinary song something extra. With a deep voice somewhere between Chris Cornell (Soundgarden, Audioslave) and Chad Kroeger (Nickelback) Willy gives the band some character. But it is the occasional screams that takes it to the next dynamic level. Listen to Go Grey, Hate Song and Rectify for example.

The slower, post grunge influenced songs like Quill Driver would not normally attract my attention, but again some nice strings saves the day. We get the same effect with the female backing vocals (Marie Kellerman) on Sidewalk Supertrip and Horse. What I might miss is a real monster hit that will make the record irresistible to replay. But the material is varied and throughout qualitative. A most promising debut it is, and this is most likely not the last we hear from these West Coast guys.

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
7	6	7	8	7

Summary
7 chalices of 10 - David