One note.<\/p>\n
Rather, one keynote from this album was all it took for me to
\nrealize that this Stockholm, Sweden-based quintet are serious about
\ntaking their act to lands far, far away from the humble origins
\nthat spawned their 1995
\nSupershitty To The Max<\/i> debut.<\/p>\n
With a deft keystroke of the electric piano, followed by a
\nbattery of seven similar notes, Boba Fett (Anders Lindstrom)
\nlaunches the band’s fifth full-length studio album,
\nBy the Grace of God<\/i>, into the upward-spiraling title track.
\nFancy that for a band that only seven years prior had relied on the
\ngrit and brawn of menacing vocal scowls and a distorted twin-axe
\nattack to stamp their arrival as the forefathers of the
\nScandinavian revivalist rock n’ roll explosion. The year 2002 would
\nfind the grown-up and more mature Hellacopters setting their sights
\nset on commanding a journey to the top of Europe’s rock n’ roll
\nmusic charts.<\/p>\n
For those familiar with the refined groundwork that the band’s
\nprevious release (
\nHigh Visibility<\/i>) laid down, it should come as no shock that
\nhead Hellacopter Nicke Andersson guides the band through 13
\nsimilarly slick studio selections with his lead vocal and guitar
\nplaying. Aided by Boba Fett’s unique keyboard solo on the opening
\ntitle track, the band succeeds in hooking the listener into their
\nfold with a chanting chorus and traditional dual-guitar solo sound.
\nIt’s probably the best track on the album and truthfully,
\nshowcasing Boba’s work at the beginning of the song makes it all
\nthe more notable.<\/p>\n
As talented as the sum of the Hellacopters parts have always
\nbeen in performing their material (including on this album), few
\nwill deny that one of the band’s trademarks is their ability to
\nmake their songs sound as if they came from the same mold. The grit
\nand brawn of the earlier Hellacopters releases meant that their
\ntrademark sound rarely created an issue in differentiating the
\ntracks on the band’s albums. The rougher edges of production give
\nthose tracks identity. However, now that I’ve listened to
\nBy the Grace of God<\/i> some 15-20 times, I’ll freely admit that
\nI still have to check the back jacket of the album to see what song
\nit is I’m listening to. Most of the songs on
\nBy the Grace of God<\/i> suffer as a result of not creating any
\nlasting identity of their own.<\/p>\n
One track that does attempt to stand out is “It’s Good But It
\nJust Ain’t Right.” The song sounds very much like the beginning of
\nthe Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers track “Runnin’ Down a Dream”
\nin a slightly more atmospheric way. The tempo of the song quickly
\npicks up and reaches a galloping speed that is more reminiscent of
\nthe material off the band’s third album,
\nGrande Rock<\/i>, than most of their more recent material.<\/p>\n
“All I’ve Got” is one of two songs not lyrically penned by
\nAndersson, but rather by bassist Kenny Hakansson and guitarist
\nRobert Dahlqvist. It’s a song that gets Andersson onto a different
\nvocal pace and pitch from most of the other tracks on the album and
\nends up being an upbeat little number with a catchy bass line.<\/p>\n
From rock n’ roll to rock n’ soul, the new age Hellacopters
\ndeliver a very accessible album with
\nBy the Grace of God<\/i>. In fact, they have already charted gold
\nin Sweden with the album, a testament to the fact that the album
\nhas plenty of high moments. But for me, being an ardent
\nHellacopters listener all the way through their catalog, I’ll just
\nsay that the album is a little too sterile for my tastes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":26346,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6831],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-37576","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-hellacopters","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37576"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}