Metallic Southern Rock from Italy? What gives you ask? Well that is indeed the case here with Ruralizer, the brand new CD from Tombstone Highway, who hail from the banks of the mighty Po'/Padus river (the longest river in Italy) in Piacenza. I guess living along the water and growing up on Black Sabbath, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Down, Black Label Society, Corrosion of Conformity, as well as various blues & bluegrass acts kind of shaped the direction that these guys were going to go in. As such Ruralizer is a lot of fun, with the party starting right up on the crunchy "Old Blood", complete with BLS styled heavy, pinch harmonic driven riffs, banjo (!), and searing slide guitars. "Graveyard Blues" is slow, grinding, Southern Rock, blues, and metal, as swamp ridden and whiskey soaked as you are going to get, and the title track with its sizzling slide guitars and gravelly vocals is like a perfect combination of Skynyrd, Blackfoot, and Molly Hatchet. Really, there's just no shortage of guitar firepower on Ruralizer, which, for fans of heavy Southern Rock, this album will be a complete blast. "Bite The Dust (and bleed)", with its fist pumping riffs, slide guitar, and cowbell, will have you launching into air-guitar mode instantly, while the bands cover of the Mountain classic "Mississippi Queen" needs to be heard to be believed.
The one little thing that takes some getting used to here are the vocals, as
HM Outlaw (yep, that's his name!) is trying VERY hard to sound 'Southern Rock' even though he has a clear Italian accent. Gotta give him some credit though, as he does a decent job of hitting on that US Southern Rock/Metal vibe and attitude, so if you can get past the accent, he and the rest of the band have put together a real fun, hard rocking album here that musically sounds closer to what you'd hear coming from the southern part of the good old USA than it does Italy.
Track Listing
1. Old Blood
2. Acid Overlord
3. Graveyard Blues
4. Hellfire Rodeo
5. Ruralizer
6. Bite The Dust (and bleed)
7. At The Bitter End
8. Mississippi Queen
9. Hangman's Friend
Printer Friendly Page
Send to a Friend
