It is a very interesting album and it is a very fun album. Other highlights include the enormously catchy groove metal song ‘Dead But Rising’ and the very stadium sized, Avenged Sevenfold-esque ‘The Nameless.’ (When he says ‘Six feet under and still alert,’ I get real Matt Shadows vibes). The track is actually written in a style suitable for him and has the band playing darker, heavier and more bombastic stuff to fit in with the King’s unique style. The legendary King Diamond, who I’ve grown more accustomed to over the year since getting the boxset of his first five albums, shows up on the tack ‘Room 24’ as another guest star. Recently, bands like Ghost have helped me loosen up a bit and with how well Volbeat blend all their disparae styles it doesn’t feel like a novelty but just a fresh combination of elements. Normally, I don’t like too much novelty in my music. Speaking of different, this is again followed up with ‘Lonesome Rider’ which has a sort of country or rockabilly feel to it.There are guest vocals from Sarah Blackwood who gives it an even more country twang. It has the same talented melodic vocals but the guitar and drums are significantly stylistically different. That is followed by ‘Black Bart’ which by contrast is almost a Speed Metal tune. I find myself loudly singing ‘the love of your life, yeah-eah eah’ and ‘Lola’s spider daaaaaaa-aaaa-ance’ in the car every single time. Any time I hear it I am instantly transported back to that field at Donnington. The song, a summery and anthemic Hard Rock tune about a historical dancer and her famed ‘spider dance ’ begins with some gentle chugging and a very melodic lead vocal. Now because I have some kind of obsession with ‘Lola Montez’ as you can guess from the above anecdote, I keep starting the album at track 9, as if that is the beginning. This is my first Volbeat album and normally before reviewing a record I’d know a lot more about the band first, have a lot more research, know more of the discography, but I have been absolutely hammering this every day all month, and I can’t really wait to spooge my approval of it all over the internet. I mean, that is what people say but obviously the reality won’t be exactly what people say as it never is with these things, but that is the kind of thing people say about them and gets you in the right head-space of roughly what to expect. If you aren’t too familiar with them either, the simplified description you hear bandied about is that they are supposedly a mixture of Elvis, Johnny Cash, Danzig and Metallica. Not least because the guitar solo, played by former Anthrax guitarist Rob Caggiano reminded me of Anthrax‘s ‘Safe Home’ which is a song that I love so much I had it played at my wedding. They played a song that was introduced as being ‘about a shady lady called Lola‘ and it really struck a chord with me.
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I had not been a Volbeat fan up until this point, but early this summer I had caught them at Download Festival between bands that I did know. You know an album is good when you listen to it every day for an entire month.