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Album Details

• Artist: The Blackfire Revelation
• Album: Gold and Guns on 51
• Label: Fat Possum
• Year of Release: 2005
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: patchen on 2005-04-14

What ever happened to when a band sounded like themselves, and no one else? Or took existing forms and made them their own? Rest assured, dear reader, this is one review that will not fall into the trap of saying this record sounds "like a cross between X and Y..zzzzzz.". Despite the fact that this five song EP includes two covers, and both of those give you and idea of the bands sympathies, this is Blackfire Revelation music!

This is a fat slab of aggressive ROCK, that takes you back to a life before Green Day sold pop as punk and Norway ruined Heavy Metal. A devastating duo of guitar and drums that is certainly not your sister's White Stripes. When Greil Marcus wrote about the Sex Pistols' final gig in San Francisco, he said that it sounded like Steve Jones was playing a guitar factory instead of one guitar. Here, guitarist John Fields sets up shop in the same aural warehouse. Drummer Hank Haney provides the appropriate brutal counterpoint. There are riffs here and sheets of sound that have been bubbling in the background since John Lee Hooker showed up around Detroit with an amplifier and in a big bad mood. And they are soulmates with much of the best Detroit rock, that city which spawned more raw power than anywhere this side of Australia. You can name those bands as well as I can.

Lyrically, originals like "Battle Hymn" and "Act Like A Believer" are classic punk, indictments of complacency and posing that have a long history in the best rock, but which sadly seem lacking out there today. The band seems to call on the listener, as the best bands do, to wake up, stop being sheep, and leave your own trace. The perfectly chosen covers, The Troggs' "I Want You Right Now" and Blue Cheer's "Second Time Around" are righteously shredded.

It is more than reassuring to hear a band with such confidence early on; to break out with a live record invites comparisons to some greats, and that means courting disaster. Yet they not only pull it off, they do so with a confidence that can only come from doing what they did: show up unannounced at clubs and force their way on stage. That they did so at many clubs that wouldn't normally put on this kind of music shows their guts AND glory. In short: The Blackfire Revelation are The Real Deal. Buy it and remember when rock had both menace and purpose, and grant me my wish of see

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