Pretty much three years after impressing with their debut EP, French rockers One Last Shot have unleashed their first album to once again have ears and plaudits aroused by their dirt encrusted sound. Even Cowboys Have Sundays is a roar of thrash nurtured ferocity and sonic southern rock liquor but an incitement as punk as it is metal as it is unbridled rock ‘n’ roll.
With their musical instincts and passions raised on nineties thrash metal, the Paris quintet soon stirred local support after emerging with a sound soon drawing comparisons to the likes of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Motörhead, and Guns N’ Roses. It was the First Gear EP in 2014 which sparked broader attention at home and further afield; its bold character and bruising sound as contagious as it was aggressive. Even Cowboys Have Sundays follows in the same vein; bringing a host of flavours, familiar yet forcibly fresh, in a strain of rock ‘n’ roll self-termed as dust metal. Equally though, the album reveals a richer vein of individualism in sound and imaginative songwriting as maturity and adventure collude in a clutch of tracks which feel like old friends in some ways but a voracious new adventure in many more aspects.
Opening with The Gambler, One Last Shot swiftly has appetite and imagination caught, its opening sultry lure of guitar an intoxication soon swallowed by a wall of wiry riffs and robust rhythms. Yet there is a control to the assault which seamlessly embraces more of a prowling than demanding gait as vocals add their own raw but captivating texture to the mix. An unpredictable nature to its overall attack is just as appetising though the song never releases its full aggressive venom, preferring to seduce with melodic and sonic enterprise with its own persuasive toxicity.
One Last Shot – Even Cowboys Have Sundays
A great start is quickly matched and pushed on by One Night Stand, a blaze of classic rock and punk ‘n’ roll with a touch of UK band The Senton Bombs to its irritable contagion. As with its predecessor, and indeed most tracks, involving the listener in body and voice is swift; the encounter another lustfully catchy proposal with a slew of rapacious hooks and swinging energy across its dirty holler before Embrace The Fire draws on old school rock ‘n’ roll for its particular rousing romp. Like a blend of Volbeat and Grumpynators, the song harasses and seduces the instincts to beat one’s rock ‘n’ roll chest; the senses entangled in the melodic rapacity of the guitars as bass and drums drive things with matching zeal. The track is superb, rock from the fifties through to modern day seemingly bullied into one compelling stomp.
The variety of sound and ideation within the album is already apparent by the fourth song and continued as Thou Shall Be Drunk creates a proposition part melodic metal and part grunge punk, all with a nineties toning while Join The Club offers a merger of punk metal and sinuous heavy rock. Both songs are twisted and moulded into seriously enticing temptations with the first especially anthemic and irresistible.
The excellent Hell Mariachi (A Mexican Interlude) takes the imagination into the heart of the desert heat, the two sides of The Bronx mixed with East Coast trash for another mouth-watering and seriously compelling exploit within Even Cowboys Have Sundays; that new maturity and bold imagination within One Last Shot united in an eager charge.
That thrash breeding within the band is in full voracity within Live Fast And Die Young and indeed It’s All About Speed straight after. The first of the two is a chug fest of nagging riffs bound in lustful grooves as vocals, single and mob handed, arouse the spirit even further with an anthemic roar as lustful and unapologetic as the sounds around them. With the guitars weaving a glorious web of melodic dexterity, the song simply rocks before its successor uncages its grubby rock ‘n’ roll to continue the manipulation of the listener’s body and spirit; the track a potent persuasion even if missing some of the vital and unique sparks of earlier tracks.
Closing up with the fiery fusion of predatory metal and imposing heavy rock of We Don’t Call 911 and lastly the groove entangled bellow of I Feel Alright, the song a tenacious web of resourceful and eventful enterprise, Even Cowboys Have Sundays leaves the spirit alive and just a little over excited. The album is a charge of commanding adventure built with recognisable and original textures and bound in a fresh and striking imagination. Their First Gear EP, stirred up a form appetite for their sound, now the album has unlocked a lust which will surely infest many others and deservedly install One Last Shot as someone to heartily recommend to all.
Even Cowboys Have Sundays is out now via JFF Records and available @ https://onelastshotofficial.bandcamp.com/album/even-cowboys-have-sundays
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Pete RingMaster 20/06/2017
Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright
Fusing garage punk and punk rock with fifties rock ‘n’ roll, the Dirty Jane sound prowls ears and psyche like a fusion of The Cramps, The Phantom, Dick Venom and The Terrortones, and Eighteen Nightmares At the Lux; a creative breed of temptation which instantly has ears and appetite inflamed as the single sonically and vocally shatters the silence. Within another breath, rhythms are prowling the senses with a lively almost predacious gait casting catchy menace for Brown to vocally embrace. With insatiable hooks equally grabbing ears all along his guitar’s swarthy grooves, a delicious grumble to Beadsmore’s bass alongside, and the whole of the band courting thick involvement with their vocal roars, the song demands lusty participation, Morris’ tenaciously swinging beats extra incentive.
Before we talk about your album, could you please just say some words about band founder and guitarist Mark Tighe who so sadly passed away recently; about him as a musician and friend.
Can you give us some background to the themes within Bloodline?
The pugilistic rascality of Nosebleed Boogie is next, guitars and sax colluding in a devilish enticement of melodic theatre as King Salami uses Ali like vocal footwork to evade the rhythmic punches, his magnetic prowess like a blend of Bo Diddley and Little Walter before offering even feistier fun in the boisterous romp of Busy Body. An infection of spicy grooves and virulent riffs, the song ensures the listener is on the end of major manipulation echoing its title before the glorious adventure of King Ghidorah rises up from its oriental bed with sixties cinematic adventure fuelling its melodies and rhythms. With King Salami a dramatic narrator, T. Bone Sanchez’s grooves are a three headed tempting of flirtatious hookery, melodic seduction, and tenacious persuasion, theatre skirted by the addictive rhythmic rumble of bassist Kamikaze UT Vincent and drummer Eric Baconstrip.
The EP’s title track is first up, its homage to cult movie gem Evil Dead pure invasive theatre. From its initial piano cursed fingering of the imagination, the track twists into a predacious stroll with infection seeping from every pore. Swinging beats and a heavy rapacious bassline courts the senses whilst a seductively nagging hook teases, Firewalker barging in with his vocal roar as raucously backed by the vociferous tones of Phillips. Dragging the listener into its transfixing hellbound realm prone to caustic expulsions, harrying them with a gloriously plodding prowl, the track reveals itself as raw virulence cast in something approaching The Cramps meeting Th’ legendary Shack Shakers as The Orson Family add their incestuous lures ultimately emerging as a depraved invasion all of the band’s making.
The excellent Little White Lie romances the senses with its multi-vocal union and warm textures next, all fuelled by the wilful and headstrong energy and sound expected of the band while its successor, Working For Wankers, has vocal chords at full volume in unity with its sentiment and defiance. Blending explosive and calm pastures, choppy riffs and melodic teasing leading to ferocious expulsions, the song has ears and appetite hooked within seconds, success equally found by the snarling Fat Kid with its carnal metallic riffs and toxic grooves.
There is no moment to calm down either as the belligerent punk rock of Stop Looking At Your Phone roars in ears, its antagonistic charge and dispute irresistible. It is a wall of sound and protestation, a torrent of violent riffs and equally uncompromising rhythms driven by the vocal antipathy of Spunk and the band. At barely a breath over a minute in length, the song is like being given the juiciest steak and only allowed one bite before it is whipped away, but what a mouthful it is.