Black Spiders – Sons of the North Album Review

Heads up, gather round, there’s a brand new force in town!

This is my second review for this awesome music blog, Hopefully you all enjoyed my first review about Metallica’s Beyond Magnetic EP! Well, in the wake of any larger releases coming our way within the rock world, until the new Van Halen album drops in I thought I’d take the time to spread the word about the all-conquering, world-enslaving, ‘any-woman-within-a-10-mile-radius-is-now-pregnant’ Black Spiders!

These guys have been on the go since 2008, landing a supporting slot with the mighty Airbourne for the latter half of that year, and proceeded to make one HELL of an impact, along with Taking Dawn as one of the best small-scale tours of that year. The mainstream media may be trying their utmost to announce that ‘rock is dead’, but anybody witnessing the birth of the Black Spiders knows very different. Building a fanbase with a slew of 3 EP’s, including songs that would later be reworked for the this full album, as well as a cover of Motorhead’s seminal ‘No Class’, these guys wear their influences proudly. Three years of touring culminated in finally putting out the new ‘Sons of the North’ album to a feverous fanbase eager to lap up any content. What we have is a stellar combination of rock n’ roll’s roots, married with a slightly punk attitude, and some brilliantly bombastic lyrics to put the icing on the already very tasty cake.

Standout tracks include opener ‘Stay Down’, which includes one of the best lyric-guitar solo breaks I’ve heard in a long time! The song takes a half second break before the end of the second chorus only for Pete ‘Spider’ Spiby to yell ‘FUCK YOU AND THIS ONE HORSE TOWN!’ at the top of his lungs, followed swiftly by a brilliantly paced guitar solo that tops this first song off nicely. Starting as they mean to go on the album never lets up, delivering arena-ready anthems one after the other. Some anthems are packed with some of the best lyrics for this sort of over-the-top rock and roll style that are just MADE for crowds. Try telling me that screaming ‘EAT THUNDER!! SHIT LIGHTNING!!’ along with thousands of other people just before ‘What Good’s a Rock Without a Roll?’ kicks in isn’t one of the most euphoric sensations known to man and I’ll show you a decent new Kings of Leon song.

Other standouts among this brilliant debut are ‘Si, El Diablo’ with its fantastic, infectiously stompy groove, and standout 3rd EP-returner ‘Just Like A Woman’. The latter should be one of the first tracks you hear by these guys if you’re gonna check ‘em out, it has everything they do brilliantly all wrapped up in a nice meaty package! A great hard rock song with a sleazy bluesy feel that compliments the lyrics nicely, coupled with a guitar line that swirls through the song bursting into brilliantly melodic passages every minute or so. If you’re cherry picking through youtube, then make this one of your first stops!The only negative I can think of is in terms of carryover from the previous EP’s, song’s like ‘Stay Down’, ‘Just Like a Woman’ and ‘St. Peter’ are from these previous EP’s, but they didn’t include what I thought was one of the best tracks on the original debut disc. ‘I’ll Be The Judge’ from the St. Peter EP is a brilliantly energetic track with a killer riff that sounds like as if Slash’s dirtiest lick had sex with Motorhead’s entire discography. This track is an awesome up-tempo stormer made for starting gigs at 100mph!

A great debut album built on the most solid of foundations with some brilliant EP’s beforehand. Rock never went away, it just went underground. With the likes of the Black Spiders, Airbourne, Taking Dawn, The Answer, Turbowolf and hundreds of others releasing out fantastic albums based on the best foundations of what went before, the world just isn’t ready for the resurrection of mainstream rock just yet…

8/10
Cheers,
S.T \m/