Roughneck Riot
Out Of Anger
TNS Records
Have you ever been in a situation where you are party to a conversation and just can’t hold back on giving the punchline? Or butting in where you shouldn’t? Are you one of those who can just let the story flow, hold your peace and come in a the right moment? Nah me neither. Let’s cut straight to the chase, Men They Couldn’t Hang, teaming up with the Levellers to try their hand at Dropkick Murphys.
Now that I’ve unleashed that I can get on with the review.
The problem using non traditional rock band instruments in favour of traditional ones means lazy comparisons are inevitable. Roughneck Riot are perfect for these lazy comparisons. This comparison would be like many of the injustices this band sing about.
We get banjo, mandolin and accordion joining up with upbeat high tempo Guitar, bass and drums but it never thrashes along. Good high tempo observations.
Listening to Out of Anger it becomes quite obvious that it is a collection spawned from anger at injustice but not an anger that has beaten the band. From the opening track, Animosity, that exclaims “Without Hope, we’ll never question why. Or seperate from anything that’s feeding you the lies” through Never Silenced, Never Stopped that passes on the wise words “Minds are filled with inspiration until they are saturated…Raise our voices to the night, Forever we will sing” we get a band still wishing for that better way.
The mandolin drenched Need I remind You is one highlight here. No need for a guitar solo when the mandolin can easily substitute. The last of the fourteen songs is a more poignant number “He Never Came Home”, it is a nice sing along number that tells the brutal truth for so many of us as time passes. Our all night teenage and early twenties talking sessions about ruling the world with high hopes and empty pockets to fuel us don’t last forever. Some people call it moving on, some say it’s maturing or many of us ruminate that they never come home. Maybe they simply run out of anger which ironically is the anger that spurned them into doing things to begin with
Great record
niallhope
