Sweden’s Bonafide promise old-fashioned hard rock, shooting a line through the stadium fillers of yore like AC/DC and Humble Pie right through to the blues and r’n’b-fixated Godfathers of heavy rock from the sixties like Led Zeppelin and Cactus; And whilst they largely deliver on that promise, stylistically, they don’t always come up with enough in the earworm department to make Are You Listening? an absolutely essential purchase.
At their best – the Kilmisterish Dealt A Bad Hand, for instance, they bolt a simple, singalong chorus onto a breakneck heavy rock chassis with great success. At the other end of the spectrum, Rumble, with it’s boom-boom glam rock drumming and stripped-back, economical, Youngesque axe attack, sounds like something Krokus might have eyed up appreciatively in 1981.
Actually, that’s quite an attractive proposition amongst many of the people I associate with in pubs, and you can see why Bonafide have become so popular all over Europe over the course of the better part of two decades. They undoubtedly talk the talk as well as they walk the walk, espacially live, and it’s hard to actually find anything to complain about in serious terms when you see the glint of steely determination in the eyes of all concerned as they belt out soon-to-be-fan-favourites like the classy Tonight I’m Wild.
Pontus Snibb has the classic voice for this kind of mullarkey – warm, lived in and punching just the right amount of grit out of the speakers to convince you to raise your fist and yell at all the right moments – and producer Chips Kiesbye, himself a production veteran of names like Backyard Babies and The Hellacopters, knows just how to harness the power of the band for maximum aural edification. Simple pleasures are often the best, and if you like back-to-basics rock n’roll you’ll enjoy this, despite my worm-based reservations…
Are You Listening? Releases on October 27th.
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