Friday 15 May 2015

Sun and Sail Club - 'The Great White Dope' (Album Review)


Album Type: Full-Length
Date Released: 12/05/2015
Label: Satin Records Recordings

‘The Great White Dop’ CD//DD//LP track listing:
01. Krokodil Dental Plan
02. Dresden Fireball Freakout Flight
03. Baba Yaga Bastard Patrol
04. Migraine With A Chainsaw Reduction
05. Level Up & Shut It Down
06. Fever Blister & The Great White Dope
07. Full Tilt Panic
08. Alien Rant Factory
09. Inside Traitor Outside View
10. Cypherpunk Roulette

Sun and Sail Club is:

Bob Balch | Guitars
Scott Thomas Reeder | Bass
Scott Reeder | Drums
Tony Adolescent | Vocals

Review:

It might be the Sun and Sail club, but you'll find no yacht rock here. Instead of Michael McDonald, we have Bad Brains. Kenny Loggins? Hall and Oats?  More like Matt Pike and Lemmy Fucking Kilmister.  The new album, featuring members of Kyuss, Fu Manchu, and the Adolescents, contains 10 riff-filled tracks of high energy, bullshit-free punk and sleaze.

If you heard their 2013 debut, ‘Mannequin’, you might recall that they stirred the waters of the rock scene a bit with their over-the-top use of the vocoder.  Normally reserved as a special effect, they put that shit on every damn line of every damn song-- with great, but also very experimental sounding results.  The song writing on ‘The Great White Dope’ steers away from the experimental direction of their previous release, and it's laser focused on one thing: unapologetically rocking your face off. The vocoder is gone and they've recruited singer Tony Adolescent, who delivers balls to the wall vocals with no added effects or frills. The production, like the music itself, is loud, heavy, and beautifully simple.

Standout tracks include album opener ‘Krokodil Dental Plan’, a 2 minute scorcher that kicks ass right out of the gate, with big riffs and in-your-face drumming from Scott Reeder. ‘Dresden Firebird Freakout’ keeps up the high energy pace, also clocking in at 2 minutes. ‘Fever Blister’ and ‘The Great White Dope’, a longer track for this album, lets rip with an unaccompanied guitar solo. No rhythm guitar, no bass, no drums, just killer riffs spraying freely all over the place like a loose fire hose. The band then keeps you guessing by launching into a nice juxtaposition between slow, sludgy doom with melodic vocals and uptempo punk rowdiness. ‘Cypherpunk Roulette’ closes the album with a trance-inducing loop that makes a good soundtrack to a lava lamp.

Overall, the album is a solid offering that, in my opinion, has all the ingredients for a good time: tightly crafted songs, stoner riff worship, and punk rock attitude.  The album, courtesy of Satin Records, is available now in digital format. CD and vinyl are available for pre-order, with no official release date set at this time.

Although I see no mention of any touring yet, these songs are going to translate well live. Expect to have your beer spilled if you're up front, this shit is rowdy.  I would love to see them tour with Valient Thorr, Municipal Waste, High on Fire, or Satan's Satyrs.  I will most definitely be picking this up on vinyl, whenever it comes out.

Words by: Doza Hawes


‘The Great White Dope’ is available here