"Steal My Horses And Run" the sophomore album from Stockholm 5-piece
Blackstrap.
This is an album to fall in love with, to cherish and to tell all you're friends
about. Its blissfully fucked up rock n roll drenched in fuzzed out guitars and atmospheric
shared lead vocals from Jonatan Westh and Maria Lindén.
The opener "Winning Speech" sounds like a harder, better, faster, stronger
version of "Medication" from Primal Scream's Vanishing Point. Its a
perfect blueprint for whats to follow, and just as the final chord rings out you're
smacked around the face with the juggernaut of a track that is "Rough Parade",
an obvious choice for a single and a sure fire hit at festivals this summer with
its call and response boy girl vocal in the same vein as The Ravonettes but with
a more poppy sheen to it. Things continue at full throttle with "Lay Down
Low", this track has a great vocal by Westh, his Swedish drawl fits perfectly
with the pounding rhythm section. Things slow down a little with "Too Far
Gone" and "The Open Road", a real gem of a track, this would fit
perfectly on the Lost In Translation soundtrack, a hypnotic drone of guitars and
vocals which leads onto possibly the strongest moment "The Bitter, The Sweet",
even though it draws comparisons to early Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, it has
more bite, more attitude. The only acoustic track on the album is the dark and
brooding "Still Sore", swathes of background noise combined with acoustic
guitar and a haunting vocal by Lindén lead the song, its not until a pounding
floor tom draws the song to a close is in its final minute.
Weighing in at just under 50 minutes there really isn't a weak moment on these
13 songs. An classic that hopefully
will be heard by many more sets of ears this year. (Richard Thane, http://thelineofbestfit.com,
United Kingdom 2008)
