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Gunslingers: Manifesto Zero

When I was a kid, there were times that I would put on an album just because I knew it would annoy my mother. Well, pay backs are hell. No my mother isn't doing the same thing but the band Gunslingers are.

With a little bit of punk and a whole lot of noise, these guys low tech approach nears the fingernails on the chalkboard effect. Recorded on a 4 track tape the tinny sound to this disc is just another annoyance to an already full plate. Add to that one of the most irritating vocal styles you can think of and a cringe worthy effort is what you get. Remember the old song by a band called The Trashman called "Bird Is The Word"? If you do, then you know what kind of vocals this disc consist of.

I do have to say that the instrumental "Condor's Radiant Spawn" is at least a decent bit of frenzied punk with a little bit of surf music guitar style thrown in. If it wasn't for this song, I would be hard pressed to give this one any stars.

Track listing:

1. The Spectre's Sinister Commandment
2. Coupe- Gorge
3. An Eye For a Knife
4. I Know What You Want
5. Stub of Fortune
6. Condor's Radiant Spawn

Added: April 25th 2010
Reviewer: Scott Ward
Score:
Related Link: Band's Myspace Page
Hits: 3219
Language: english

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Gunslingers: Manifesto Zero
Posted by Richard Barnes, SoT Staff Writer on 2010-09-16 09:33:11
My Score:

The second release from French trio, Gunslingers is a hard-grinding blast of guitar and deeply furrowed bass sonic effects, kicking off with a bit of narrative and a heavy groove in the opening song. This and the later tracks all sport a distorted processed vocal extending guitarist, Gregory Raimo's vowel sounds incomprehensibly (he describes it as "yaya preach" and I think that fits). The guitar texture is out of Tony McPhee's prog period with the Groundhogs, with screaming wah-wah effects to the fore. This influence is quite pronounced throughout the album but takes the grunge and metal-thrashing much further than the Groundhogs ever did. "Coupe Gorge" is a stomping, very much bass and percussion led, piece whilst "An eye for a knife" is more Sex Pistols than Groundhogs and the most psychotic of the songs on the album.

The following number takes the pace down a step with a spacey wah-wah guitar leading the way in Dave Brock style. However the initial psychedelic pace is gradually overruled as the bass and drum juggernaut lumbers in and crushes its space rock embryo into nanoparticles. "Stub of fortune" features a repeated heavy metal riff with a kind of tinny effect as though recorded in a Nissan hut. The final track is the most enjoyable initially as an instrumental with a tasty guitar figure dominating. Just that relentless machine of a drummer boring the pants off me again.

Whilst initially grinding on the nerves, repeated plays softens the effect and reveals some good guitar work and rhythmic structures, let down a tad by the rather plodding drum arrangements. Nevertheless, even at just over 30 minutes in length, its still not something you'd want to treat your head to too often and Raimo's Yaya preach effect does get tedious after the first couple of tracks. If punk had been invented by, rather than against, prog rock musicians it might have sounded something like this. On reflection I'm glad they didn't.



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