I was drawn to this Electric Guitars (Søren Andersen and Mika Vandborg) album by the sound of the track Headless Chicken, which was the song I found as the promo.  The song brought back memories from my early days of a band called D-A-D and an album – No Fuel Left For The Pilgrims – that got massive airplay on my record player.  This I later found out was due to fact that Jacob Binzer produced the album and both Jacob and Jesper Binzer of D-A-D were guests on the single Headless Chicken.  So I actually went in to this review with a different set of expectations than what was presented to me.

My own mistaken identity aside, I took Rock and Roll Radio for a spin. This is the third album from one of Scandinavia’s most popular hard rock bands.  The album starts off with the title track, which comes at you with a nice little riff that wouldn’t be out of place on an AC/DC track – albeit this one has a lot less distortion.  But then the song rolls onto a nice bluesy riff and it is something you can tap your foot along to.  The lyrics are quite catchy and I find myself singing along with the chorus “I need more Rock and Roll on the radio”.

The background information I have received with the download gives us a bit of insight into the title.

AC/DC can sell 60,000 tickets in 12 minutes, Volbeat can sell out tickets in the Park Arena, Metallica‘s new album just went straight to number one on the album charts; rock music is doing really well in Denmark. Still, you have to search your radio over and over to find rock on commercial radio. We have timelessly speculated why this is, and therefore the title track is a tribute to those of us who long for rock tunes on the radio. This single is – incidentally – perfectly suited for radio” Søren Andersen adds.

I find myself agreeing totally.  At this stage I am thinking I can’t get past the fact that they are very different to what I thought they would sound like.

The sound across the album has a nice simple bluesy feel and it is quite easy listening; I find this album to be one that could easily have any track played on the radio.  There are quite a few influences from other bands I can hear throughout, I’ve already mentioned D-A-D and AC/DC, but there feels to be a bit of ZZ Top and also You Me At Six.

It has some very strong tracks like the title track, Swagman, and Splinter.  I find the lyrics a bit tongue in cheek and poking fun at times with lines in Splinter “a splinter in my finger and a blister on my toe… there is an itsy rash that lingers… and Stay Under The Radar’s “You’re sleeping on the job getting paid, a socialist in the USA.”

Overall it is a solid album but for me I am a little disappointed as I find I definitely wanted more like the D-A-D sounding Headless Chicken.

Electric Guitars – Rock and Roll Radio was released on February 10 2017 through Mighty Music