Review uit de Oor van Oktober j.l.

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Wat is er toch aan de hand in Nederland? Langzamerhand ontpopt zich een heuse nieuwe generatie (nu) metalbands. Wat te denken van Cascade: een band die claimt niet te klinken als wie dan ook (de laatste die dat expliciet riep, was Elvis Presley) wekt op zijn minst de nieuwsgierigheid bij ondergetekende. En inderdaad, Cascade is niet zomaar weg te drukken in het behoorlijk grote nu metalhoekje. Daar rockt de band teveel voor. Veel gitaarloopjes, ouderwetse solo's en godzijdank is Frank Klerks geen gefrustreerd zingende zanger. Wat vooral opvalt aan Cascade, is de gelaagdheid in de muziek. Niet alleen maar een riffje, een drumloopje en een basgitaar, nee hier en daar een 'gitaarpiepje' maakt de muziek van Cascade nou net even anders dan die van de gemiddelde rockband. Lekker is de stuwende, positieve kracht die uitgaat van de meestal behoorlijk opgejaagde, maar daarom niet minder melodieuze songs. Misschien is zelfs het eind jaren '80-gevoel dat de plaat je geeft, wel een extraatje. Of zou dat duidelijke gevoel dat hier vier echte muzikanten met maar één ding bezig zijn - muziek maken - de doorslag geven?
FRANK HELMINK

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Five Horse Johnson (http://www.smallstone.com/fhj)

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"With their fourth full-length "The No. 6 Dance", these Toledo boys are now officially rock 'n' roll royalty. As of today, this minute, right now, they are the finest rock 'n' roll band in America. ZZ Top are probably my favorite band of all time and I still play their first five albums on a weekly basis, and Five Horse Johnson is the only band I've found who can make a week without spinning those LPs seem OK.

So if you're unfamiliar, I've already given you a pretty good reference point as far as what these guys sound like. Five Horse Johnson don't sound like ZZ Top, but I don't think it'd be unfair to assume that Rio Grande Mud has done a fair tour of duty in these guys' homes. More than a specific style of playing, what Five Horse Johnson take from ZZ Top is the sleazy fluidity which I suppose is what makes me keep playing those records over and over. Lead vocalist/harmonica player Eric Oblander sings like he's got a belly full of rotgut and he plays harmonica like he's much older and much less white than he is, guitarist Brad Coffin's playing suggests a neck and frets smeared with barbeque sauce, and the rhythm section is only slightly less tight than a duck's ass. A crack fucking band, in other words.

And yeah, the singer plays harmonica, so you might be thinking "blues rock" and, as is the usual reaction to such a music, start getting dressed for bed, but hold up. Yeah, there's a lotta blues flavor to what these guys lay down, but there's no 12-bar autopilot to be had in these grooves (and here's where the ZZ Top thing really comes to a head), just a lot of pummeling rock songs which preserve the sleaze of electric Chicago blues. Check out the songs "Silver" or "Lollipop" to see what I mean. This won't bore you to tears like your typical blues rock- it'll just make you wanna pour a few beers down your head and start shakin' your ass.

And then there's the album's final track, "Odella." I said earlier that these guys avoid the straight 12-bar thing, so I guess I sorta lied. This is something else, though. "Odella" is something much darker, more sinister, and altogether fucking brilliant. It's not blues rock, it's blues. Over a simple, ominous blues figure which is repeated without variance for the song's fourteen and a half minutes, Oblander gives a tour de force performance, moaning incomprehensibly and blowing an exorcism through his harmonica while guest axeman Billy Reedy tears it up for the duration. It should be boring as hell, and it certainly would be in less capable hands, but in these beer-sodden mitts it becomes something much more like a "When the Levee Breaks" for the new century. Yeah, I know that sounds ridiculous, but when confronted with the power of the song itself, I can do nothing but sit in slack-jawed amazement. I've played "Odella" at least once a day for the couple of weeks I've had the album and all I can say at this point is that it's far, far too short.

Ditto the album. Buy this, buy all of their albums (and, while you're at it, check out the other finery Small Stone has to offer), go see them live and buy them beer, mow their lawns, do their laundry; whatever you need to do to feel you've repaid your debt to the rock they have so generously brought forth."
Brain Varney - Lollipop Magazine- April 2001

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_{Wist niet eens meer dat dit bestond...}

tnkx voor de tip

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Op zondag 05 augustus 2001 23:37 schreef kwanten het volgende:
Die cascade klinkt wel interessant (schrijf je dat zo?), zal eens ff wat meer informatie zoeken over die band en het een en ander luisteren

tnkx voor de tip

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