One note.
Rather, one keynote from this album was all it took for me to
realize that this Stockholm, Sweden-based quintet are serious about
taking their act to lands far, far away from the humble origins
that spawned their 1995
Supershitty To The Max debut.
With a deft keystroke of the electric piano, followed by a
battery of seven similar notes, Boba Fett (Anders Lindstrom)
launches the band’s fifth full-length studio album,
By the Grace of God, into the upward-spiraling title track.
Fancy that for a band that only seven years prior had relied on the
grit and brawn of menacing vocal scowls and a distorted twin-axe
attack to stamp their arrival as the forefathers of the
Scandinavian revivalist rock n’ roll explosion. The year 2002 would
find the grown-up and more mature Hellacopters setting their sights
set on commanding a journey to the top of Europe’s rock n’ roll
music charts.
For those familiar with the refined groundwork that the band’s
previous release (
High Visibility) laid down, it should come as no shock that
head Hellacopter Nicke Andersson guides the band through 13
similarly slick studio selections with his lead vocal and guitar
playing. Aided by Boba Fett’s unique keyboard solo on the opening
title track, the band succeeds in hooking the listener into their
fold with a chanting chorus and traditional dual-guitar solo sound.
It’s probably the best track on the album and truthfully,
showcasing Boba’s work at the beginning of the song makes it all
the more notable.
As talented as the sum of the Hellacopters parts have always
been in performing their material (including on this album), few
will deny that one of the band’s trademarks is their ability to
make their songs sound as if they came from the same mold. The grit
and brawn of the earlier Hellacopters releases meant that their
trademark sound rarely created an issue in differentiating the
tracks on the band’s albums. The rougher edges of production give
those tracks identity. However, now that I’ve listened to
By the Grace of God some 15-20 times, I’ll freely admit that
I still have to check the back jacket of the album to see what song
it is I’m listening to. Most of the songs on
By the Grace of God suffer as a result of not creating any
lasting identity of their own.
One track that does attempt to stand out is “It’s Good But It
Just Ain’t Right.” The song sounds very much like the beginning of
the Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers track “Runnin’ Down a Dream”
in a slightly more atmospheric way. The tempo of the song quickly
picks up and reaches a galloping speed that is more reminiscent of
the material off the band’s third album,
Grande Rock, than most of their more recent material.
“All I’ve Got” is one of two songs not lyrically penned by
Andersson, but rather by bassist Kenny Hakansson and guitarist
Robert Dahlqvist. It’s a song that gets Andersson onto a different
vocal pace and pitch from most of the other tracks on the album and
ends up being an upbeat little number with a catchy bass line.
From rock n’ roll to rock n’ soul, the new age Hellacopters
deliver a very accessible album with
By the Grace of God. In fact, they have already charted gold
in Sweden with the album, a testament to the fact that the album
has plenty of high moments. But for me, being an ardent
Hellacopters listener all the way through their catalog, I’ll just
say that the album is a little too sterile for my tastes.
