Ok, that’s the case of an album that I willingly got it to review grudgingly. It’s not that I wanted to speak ill of the band. It’s definitely not it. It isn’t my intent to diminish the band. It’s just I don’t like when the press makes a band bigger that it actually is. And the press did it to Hellacopters. There are a few things I really don’t forgive. This is one of them. I remember that the band used to open converts for the mighty Iron Maiden in the late 1990s. No bad band would do it though their music is very, but very different from Maiden.
Here I got a potent and adrelinalize 1970s inspired Hard Rock. In many moments as in the beiginning of “Can It Wait” Hellacopters remind my beloved Kiss especially when it comes to the guitars. The band captured the spirit of the 1970s as never before. If one cloese the eyes and listens only the guitars the memory of Ace Frehley will certanly come to mind. Of course, I say this a great way. To me it would be a honor to have my band compared to the ones as Kiss. “Eyes of Oblivion” gets even more near the 1970s spirit with following track with that spiced taste of Heavy Blues with a prominent and potent piano. The track is strong and emotional as all tracks with this blueasy catch should be. The drums play an important role to it as well as prominent as it can be. Drummer Robert Erickson really destroys it. The expected guitar solo comes in a burst. I say expected because this kind of song asks for a guitar solo. The only thing is when it will come not if it will come.
I cherish the way Hellacopters bounce hard and vigorous tracks with cadenced ones as tittle track “Eyes of Oblivion” whose the tone of guitar licks also remind Kiss. I guess I’m getting too nostalgic with Kiss here but what can I do? But it’s not that nostalgy that got me about “Eyes of Oblivion.” It was also the great quality of the album. When a band opts to relive a certain musical time it knows all the pors and cons and the comparisons many people will make. However when the band is really true about it the thing goes well. That’s exactly what I felt here. A band that really likes the outcome of this album. The piano of “A Plow and a Doctor” tells this. So, just let the magic flows. So good to have bands like this in this sad and lonely and pathetic little world.
Hellacopters “Eyes of Oblivion” will be released on April 1st via Nuclear Blast Records.
Track Listing:
- Reap a Hurricane
- Can It Wait
- So Sorry I Could Die
- Eyes of Oblivion
- A Plow and a Doctor
- Positively Not Knowing
- Tin Foil Soldier
- Beguiled
- The Pressure’s On
- Try Me Tonight
Watch “Eyes of Oblivion” official video here:
I’m just a lucky guy who has chosen metal to live with for a long time. Metal changed my life for good. It made me more confident and stronger. Metalheads are naturally far away from the mass mediocrity and don’t accept impostures from anybody else. Metal is more than music, it’s a life changing oportunity!