Despite a name dripping with Southern-rock innuendo and a debut album cover that looks like it could have been designed for Black Oak Arkansas or The Outlaws, Brooklyn's Black Water Rising overflows with broad influences. There are the obvious ones: Black Label Society, The Brought Low and even the band that shares one-third of Black Water Rising's name, Black Stone Cherry. And then there are the unexpected ones, including Audioslave, Cavo, a funked-up Jeff Scott Soto and -- in a few places, Foreigner (the pregnant riff that opens "Blessed") and Live (the anxious tension early on during "No Halos").
With all that diversity, you might think Black Water Rising's self-titled debut would be all over the place musically, but the seasoned quartet – vocalist Rob Traynor used to front Dust to Dust, and the band also includes former members of Boiler Room and Stereomud – holds it all together with sharp riffs and a thick and fuzzy bottom end. If anything, there's not enough variety in these 11 muscular, sludgy songs.
Still, this is how modern commercially viable alt-rock/metal sounds these days, and don't surprised if you eventually hear Black Water Rising flooding the airwaves. "Brother Go On," "Sale On Your Soul" and "The Mirror" were built for that kind of success.
Track Listing:
1) The Mirror
2) Brother Go On
3) Hate Machine
4) Black Bleeds Through
5) Blessed
6) No Halos
7) Living Proof
8) Rise
9) The River
10) Sale On Your Soul
11) Burn It Down
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