Rockfreaks.net

Turbowolf

Two Hands

Written by: TL on 26/04/2015 22:00:12

Is there any better way to signal that your band is all attitude and no substance, than to name it something with the word "Turbo"? There might not be, yet the better question is, does that even matter when you have swagger in spades the way UK group Turbowolf does? On the group's recently released second album "Two Hands", the band certainly has a big set of balls out and swinging, in form of a guitar and bass that deliver one booming, badass riff after another, perpetually handcuffed in sync like two convicts on the run. These riffs want you to boogie, and they want you to boogie hard, and if you're doubting it, the lashes of the drums will quickly whip you into line.

Just listen to the leading single "Rabbits Foot". The riff is instantly rousing, the beat is hard-pumped, and on top singer Chris Georgiadis chants and croons, pressing his otherwise narrow tone of voice to a raspy, decadent rock & roll style. That's "Two Hands" in a nutshell: A hard riff, a hard beat, a catchy, repetitive refrain, straight for the jugular. You get the sense that there are nuances of classic rock - Led Zeppelin and the harder, more trippy Beatles for instance - as well as some Queens Of The Stone Age influence (particularly in the chorus of "Nine Lives"), but these impressions simply hang on like ragged streamers on a runaway locomotive where the driver has long since jumped off.

"Two Hands" is all about pounding ahead and mercilessly extorting the dynamic of giving you a ballsy riff, taking it away and giving it back. A "song" like "Solid Gold" doesn't even bother to have a verse, it just has some muffled child chanting on top of an eerie background riff, yet when the real punch is thrown and Georgiadis comes in sneering, you still have to sneer with him: "This snake is wrapped around your neck! Solid gold! This snake is wearing the body of a man! This man is you when you're holding hands!"

"Twelve Rooms" opens with a sampled bit of speech, proclaiming in a serious tone that: "I am convinced by the evidence that we are a species with amnesia. We have forgotten something of great importance from our own past." A good guess would be that Turbowolf think we've forgotten how to rock out like back in the acid-fueled seventies, and that they intend to teach us, only in 2015 we need to be even more relentless. It's no longer about exploring exotic sounds. It's about the riff. The riff is your general and you must obey, as the energy is constant, near oppressive, bidding heads to just bang and bang and bang.

Variety then, is not the album's biggest forte. When the signature riffs are not in focus, more meandering tones join the percussion in simply drawing things out and creating suspense, and especially towards the end of the record, critical listeners will start to think that it's wise that there are no more than eleven tracks on here. When at their best, however, like on the awesome "Good Hand", Turbowolf go irresistibly hard, and you can easily picture throngs of fans losing their minds to the music in the live setting. An uncompromising, slightly one-sided record then, but a consistent one at that, with a rather unique style to it.

Download: Rabbits Foot, Solid Gold, Good Hand
For The Fans Of: Queens Of The Stone Age, The White Stripes, Wolfmother, Royal Blood
Listen: facebook.com/turbowolf

Release date 02.04.2015
Spinefarm Records / Search And Destroy Records