When I started writing reviews, I wrote a sample review for Ben Folds new album. And for the most part, that kind of pop/rock is the music that I listen to. It is the music I like. I'm a little older now and some of the punk stuff just seems a little silly at this point to listen to. I mean, it just doesn't look good when you pull up to a traffic light with the windows rolled down and Blink 182 or some other band is screaming about how unfair it is growing up. I have a daughter for god's sake. She's probably in the back of the car in her car seat. I don't want to give her any ideas. So, I've kind of settled in to my poppy rock. But…I have a secret life.
And that secret life has wife beater T-shirts, handlebar moustaches, flaming skull tattoos, and throwing the devil's horns while my tongue is hanging out. Yes, I'm a sucker for stoner rock. And that is what Truckfighters is. Really, there isn't much else to say about it. It was as if they went down a checklist.
"Let's see here, really loud fuzzy bass that plays groovy repetitive lines?"
"Check."
"Guitar that doubles the bass line?"
"Gotcha."
"Excessive use of cymbals with hypnotic bass drum use."
"But, of course."
"Four pale white guys bobbing their heads while playing..."
"…and one of them hollering like he was too far away from the microphone when they recorded the album, can we leave already?"
On a stoner rock scale with Kyuss at one end and Fu Manchu at the other, I would say these guys fall a little bit more on the Fu Manchu end. There isn't quite as much experimentation to their sound but they are a couple of Swedes that know how to lay it down. The only knit picking that I could do would be to ask that the guitarist step it up a little bit more. I would love to hear more soloing over the solid, repetitious, head banging sound that they create.
I think the best track on the album is actually on that does push the band outside its comfort zone a little bit. "Subfloor" is actually one of the quieter songs on the album but creates even more tension and more excitement in the sound by adding horns. It comes across like some kind of mariachi band on acid. But the fact that it is different from the other songs on the album allows it to stand out in my mind. If the other songs had little touches like this, they would stand out from the pack. Maybe next time.
While I don't think that Gravity X is to be considered one of the best stoner rock albums ever, I do think that it has earned Truckfighters a place at the table. I mean, they got me closing the door to my office to rock out while writing this. What else could you ask for?
