D.O.A.

Who ordered the dish of high times, hairspray, spandex, hot women, stage poses, splits from the drumriser and general excess? Thank you for anyone who did, this is truly a breath of fresh air from the American rock scene for me. Finally someone is having fun in rock again. Damn it has been a long time. Snakeryder is a band from New Jersey, and it is very audible that they are fond of fellow townsmen Bon Jovi and even Bruce Springsteen. The band plays full on vintage 80s hard rock in the vein of Mötley Crüe, Def Leppard, Ratt and company. And I say that it is about DAMN time I find out about one of these boys:) Everything on this album simply brings a smile on my face. Every track contains that unadulterated party feeling. Shake For A Shake, Got No Time For Romance, Love It Bites and Road To Ruin all have magnificent AC/DCish and CRÜEish riffs that scream a good time. The guitar solos on the entire album are simply stupendous, I cannot get enough of them. Hyper-infectious melody combined with the oozing feeling of sleaze that the era of hair metal was all about. As I said, this feeling did not work for me on Judas Priests Turbo. On D.O.A. it works like a hammer to the head. The slick production just gives the solos and riffs more power to make a fist rise in the name of finding one beautiful babe after another. And if the girls are not into the smell of hairspray, you still have the anthems of independency to fall back on. For that is what most of the songs here are telling about, and god bless them for it:) You wont find much profound, deep thought in here on the lyrical side, all you prog fans can just return to sip from your wineglasses and chat about the problems of genetic research while these boys rock the hell out of us;) Stick To Your Guns even has a nasty metallic edge to it that makes it the best track among many great ones. Almost all of the songs have choruses that will bother your brain for days. You will easily find yourself singing There´s A Price You Have To Pay in the middle of a grocery store visit. And all you guys trying to find something to soothe the ladies in true 80s fashion when the lights dim down, have no fear. Don´t Wanna Let Go provides you the classic over-the-top-sappy acoustic-based ballad, the cheek-to-cheek dance number. The cheese meter jumps through the roof in the first chorus and by the second verse your ears should be dripping with Mozzarella;) But that is what rock ballads are all about, admit it. A.J.Fedz sings in the footprints of Dokkens Don Dokken and Ratts Stephen Pearcy, with even hints of AC/DCs Brian Johnson popping up from time to time. He also plays the keyboards and guitar on this album and I must mention his lead guitar work AGAIN, which is just awesome. I just can´t get enough of these solos, the Leppardish sounds and rocking feel just make them so damn infectious. Karl Karlston provides solid rhythm tracks on guitar and Joey Reno and Dino Castano provide a grooving backbeat on the bass and drums, respectively. The whole band makes the backing vocals, so I am willing to bet that this group would be awesome to see live. Danger Zone, The Usa and Long Way Home are the more mediocre tracks, that just don´t take off like the killer tracks that I mentioned. Besides, if my memory serves me right, Nitro did a song called Long Way Home so good, it just isn´t the same;) This album is a veritable time machine. This is just Snakeryders debut album so these guys can make it big. I hope having fun in rock will one day again become fashionable. Put D.O.A. playing, crank the volume up to 12, grab a cold one and sit back. You can swear that skyscraper hair-dos, tight clothing and rocking good time are the rage of the time again. At least in your mind. To everyone who misses the 80s and the sleazy pop metal, and are tired of hearing 30-year-old millionaires moan about how bleak life is, worry no more. Snakeryder has come to save us! Sure this all has been done a million times before, but it takes a lot of skill to make something this worn-out sound so damn fresh and energetic. CANT TAKE MY SOUL, IN THE NAME OF ROCK N ROOOLLL!!!