When you’ve got members of the hard rock community such as Mike Inez (Alice in Chains), Slash and Dee Snider (Twisted Sister) salivating over your new record, there’s a good chance you’re doing something right. Monster Truck, the Canadian hard rock sensation, have been garnering rave reviews and rapturous responses from across the board since they unleashed the astonishingly powerful ‘Furiosity’ and, on the evidence of second album ‘Sittin’ heavy’, those responses are well-deserved. Put simply ‘sittin’ heavy’ is the album you want all hard rock albums to be – hedonistic, exciting, beautifully raw and thrillingly real and, over the course of eleven tracks, Monster Truck pummel you with a rock ‘n’ roll sound that will have you leaping from your seat in excitement.
Opening track ‘why are you not rocking’ brilliantly sets the tone. A wah-infused monster that draws upon the same retro-fitted gasoline that powers Clutch and Monster Magnet, the band lay down their manifesto when they sing “rock ‘n’ roll might save your life, might save your life tonight”. On the one hand it’s the sort of sentiment that has powered a thousand rock ‘n’ roll anthems from a thousand youths all young, dumb and full of cum and yet, on the other hand, with Jon Harvey laying down the battle cry, it feels somehow fresh and exciting again. The same could be said of the brutal groove that is ‘don’t tell me how to live’ – the band may not be singing anything new, but the preacher-like delivery and ecstatic guitar riffs will have you too busy throwing your fist in the air to care. It’s the band’s edge-of-the-seat delivery and raw vitality that sees ‘sittin’ heavy’ transcend rock ‘n’ roll cliché and join the ranks of the classics and goddam If Jeremy Widerman’s frenetic guitar work doesn’t make you want to scream with joy every time he unleashes a new riff. Refusing to slacken the pace, ‘she’s a witch’ has a psychedelic soul and a swaggering attitude that suggests Monster Truck’s witches are rather more of the leather clad and buxom variety than the warty creatures of popular fiction. Monster Truck take a detour to the Deep South for ‘for the people’, a track that has more in common with Ralph Stanley (O Brother Where art thou? Soundtrack) than Kyuss, and yet even here the band can’t resist stepping on the gas and sending the track spinning off into a higher orbit as the riffs pile up and the vocal harmonies spin around them.
The first track to really slow the pace and allow the storm clouds a moment to gather is ‘black forest’ which recalls Joe Bonamassa’s take on ‘sloe Gin’ with its textured, organ opening from Brandon Bliss and taut, bluesy feel. It’s a beautiful song and it shows that Monster Truck, for all their bluster, are more than capable of taking their collective feet off the gas when the mood calls for it. The heavier riffs return for the chrome-plated surge of ‘another man’s shoes’, a monster of a track that sounds like latter-day Black Sabbath covering Led Zeppelin. The piano powered ‘Things get better’ is a bluesy belter that made me grin like a Cheshire Cat for about an hour and it’s just one of many tracks on offer here that I could happily listen to on repeat to overcome even the worst of days. It’s yet further evidence of the magical, healing power of rock ‘n’ roll and Monster Truck play with soul and power, a combination that is awesomely potent when combined with such memorable songs. A straight, no-chaser, pedal to the metal track, ‘The enforcer’ kicks ass and takes names before ‘to the flame’ slows things down to a sludgy trawl that suggests more than a touch of herbal influence. Slow, heavy, and oppressive, ‘to the flame’ is pure stoner rock heaven only for ‘new soul’ to smash the mood to pieces with its foot-on-the-monitor attitude and bluesy swagger sounding like Joe Bonamassa hopped up on amyl nitrate and cheap speed. The album closes with ‘enjoy the time’, the closest thing Monster Truck have to a manifesto with its assertion that you have to live in the moment if you’re going to live at all. Actually, scratch that, it’s more of a manifesto for rock ‘n’ roll itself and it’s played with all the urgency that such an important mission statement deserves.
There isn’t a dull moment on ‘sittin’ heavy’, not a wasted second or a dull track. The production is second-to-none – crystal clear and yet raw enough that you feel every pounding beat and every roaring riff. Like Guns ‘n’ Roses back in the day, Monster Truck understand the value of clarity and yet power and that’s precisely what this stunning mix provides. The band deal in the familiar but, like the best rock ‘n’ roll bands, they’re not concerned with breaking new ground so much as playing what they believe in with every ounce of soul they possess. Music with this much heart is simply irresistible and if you come away from ‘sittin’ Heavy’ feeling anything less than elated then you may have to consider a lifetime of Coldplay records ‘cause rock ‘n’ roll clearly ain’t your thing!
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