When they're good, they're great
4
By BrianSwaldi
With Rival Sons, i have a very specific reaction and this album is no exception. Historically, i tend to love about 80% of what they do. When they are good, they drop powerful and awesome rock that becomes instant classics.
The bulk of their songs, this album included, feature top shelf instrumentals lead by muscular guitars that often are great for working out to. But it's the vocals that seem to be the determining factor in how good the songs are. The singing is great on that 80% of the songs, but the other 20% of the time the vocals come off a touch too feminine. In general, the harder the song the better the vocals. The slower songs don't tend to work as well with the lead singer's vocals. They often sound too echo-y and the vocals come off sounding like a woman with a masculine voice singing.
Rival Sons albums usually feature 1 big hit that clearly sits apart from the rest (like Keep On Swinging). Electric Man is this albums stand-apart hit. It's not just the only 5 star song on this album, it's one of the best in their catalog.
The album feels a little bloated as there are 6 songs that i felt weren't worth keeping. A 10 song album would have felt more solid. The albums overall rating would have been 5 stars if it weren't for the high number of throwaways.
There's one 5 star song in Electric Man, three 4 star songs lead by Open My Eyes, and six 3 star songs including a CCR cover that was good, but can't hold a candle to Fogarty's version.
