Review Summary: Bullets and Octane connect countless of musicial elements into one big, dirty, hard rocking and most of the time catchy son of a gun. In the mouth of the young is a perfectly acceptable and great effort by a young and seemingly hungry band.
Who are Bullets and Octane?
Bullets and Octane are a punk influenced, gritty rock band originally from St. Louis, Missouri and now based in Southern California (as Referenced in the song "Cancer California"). The band has been touring in Europe and North America since December 31, 2000, playing as a support band for Avenged Sevenfold, Social Distortion, Bad Religion, Eagles of Death Metal and Flogging Molly amongst others, as well as headlining for a few months in 2006.
Lead Singer: Gene Louis
Lead Guitarist: James Daniel
Bassist: Brent Clawson
Drummer: Ty Smith.
In The Mouth of the Young
Released: April 11, 2006
Label: RCA
Producer(s): Page Hamilton (of Helmet)
I personally found out about them in this summer and I liked the songs that I heard. Bullets and Octane have a somewhat dirty and flat out Motörhead-ish rocking sound with good clean vocals by Gene Louis that make them somewhat unique. I bought the album 4 weeks ago and decided to write a short review about it.
The album delivers a lot of great and catchy songs e.g. the opener
Going Blind doesn't take its time to build to anything as it rushes after a few lines directly into the chorus which showed huge energy and power by the band. It's a heavy and nonstop rocking song with a swift guitar solo as well. A great way to start the album.
Caving In is a perfect single they could release as another example. It has a fantastic chorus that is great to sing along with. It has a bit of a flair of bands like SOil during their highest phase when they released "Scars". Anthem like main parts that deliver a great feeling. The outlay of the song and concept is rather simple but they manage to put new things in as well like the fantastic ending here that puts you literally into a frenzy.
But Bullets are Octane just seem to be a pure speed rocking band they have many surprises on the album. One is
Cancer California which has a very stomping sound accompinied by sans drumming and a more happier sound. The guitar work strangley reminds of My Chemical Romance which seemed odd ad first but still seemed to fit into it. Just like this song has
Bathroom Floor visibly strong influences by Social Distortion and Guns N'Roses. Bathroom Floor is in my opinion the strongest song on the entire album with perfect teaming of guitars, vocals and slower drumming. The song provides many different and unlikely parts and you really feel that they put a lot of effort and experimented in this one here.
All Hail Halo yet again is another completely different song. Bullets and Octane really found a truly significant and other sound. They have obvious digs and influences but yet manage to have so many different parts in their songs which has the result that it's really hard to guess what follows next. A guitar solo? Just angry yelling? Or a lower tuned slower part? Who knows. All Hail Halo is pretty much what they go for on this album. So many different parts that come together in the end completed by a great chorus. Bullets and Octane is just fun to listen to. They are loud, angry and unpredictable.
They also show off their punk routes with the one minute spitfire that is
Never Say Now. Spiffy and wild guitars with yelling vocal work. It's pretty much an angry punk metal explosion that
Queen Mirage has an awesome guitar solo which has tons of energy and excellent momentum by the previous build up work. It also fades out the song in a rather unique way.
I ain't your savior and
Save My Sorrow are the weaker songs of the album in my opinion yet are still very good. They seem more relaxed and a lot easier to handle. Just fun and heavy songs to listen to.
The last song
Mine Now is somewhat generic and not exactly an explosive way to end the album. It has a simple song structure with lots of heavy rocking guitars in it. The only interesting part in it made it somewhat decent though. We don't get just snotty rocking at the end with a bang but a drums with soft vocals that leave the listeners hungry and ready for more.
Highlights:
~ Bathroom Floor
~ Caving In
~ All Hail Halo
~ Cancer California
Pro
+ Excellent Vocal Work
+ No real down parts or letdows
+ Every song feels more or less entirely different
+ Unique song structures and lots of surprising parts
+ Catchy refrains which are great to sing along with
Contra
- Short album length of circa 40 minutes
- Every song has basicially the same length [ca. 3-4 min.], no long epic song
Summary
Bullets and Octane have obvious digs at their heros like Motörhead, Guns N' Roses & Social Distortion. They connect lots of different elements into one crazy but still perfectly working and hard rocking end product. The album has a lot of catchy songs and parts that you won't really predict as they come off rather surprising. I loved it at the first listen and like it even a bit more so now.
This Message Edited On 12.26.06
great work anyway, keep them up
