Oh hell yeah. Finally something worth bangin’ a
head to. Kraised’s Tony Noyes, a.k.a. “Tones,” rages
with a vocal fury that could’ve been the spawn
of James Hetfield and the late Layne Staley, yet still
has the lyrical balls to call out a certain metal prick
by name: “Got no job got no money for iTunes
/ Stole them so far so how you like me, Lars?” So
goes the scorching title song/opener to this crater-creating
stomp of an album. Drummer Kelly Knight might be some
kind of squid-man/minotaur, as not only does he hammer
the skins with what sounds like a few extra stick-clenching
fists, but there’s gotta be at least four feet
at work there; no regular human pounds the double-bass
so consistently.
The truly insane thing here is actually
not the extent to which Kraised’s hard rock/metal
slays, but that one of their two guitarists is ten-year-old
AZ axe whiz Jack Ripper, the little man that shreds
with the big boys. Sounds crazy, I know, but they are,
after all, Kraised. Though they could ride the Ripper
all the way to bank if they chose, to their credit,
nowhere on Kraised’s album inlay or myspace page
do they harp on the anomaly of their prodigal guitarist;
Ripper’s just another dude in the band. There’s
a diversity to the songs, such as on “No Way
No How”, which cashes in the Tones’ Hetfield
aspect in exchange for some Axel Rose influence and
adds acoustic guitar to the stew, and “I Found
You,” which combines influences as varied as
Pantera, Rage Against the Machine and Alice in Chains.
Kraised is Ozzfest-bound, for sure.
Favorite Track: “Mr.
Know It All”
Steve Gunn is a hard-boiled suburban New Yorker with
a PhD in rockology and the propensity to point with
full-throttle moxie up to his ears and unflinchingly
declare, “Hey! These things ain’t garbage
cans, y’know!” sisterray@myway.com
