Review Summary: Black Spiders Still Crawl Around Your Brain
When a band reaches out to their fans to fund your sophomore album, you naturally place a certain amount of trust in that band for delivering a great record; after all you don’t want your money wasted even though you’ll still get goodies in return for your generosity. On the flipside, this also puts a certain degree of pressure on the artist- where do they draw the line on creating a people-pleasing album or making one the band themselves are satisfied with?
In 2011 Black Spiders created a sizable crater from the impact that their debut album left on rock and metal. Filled with a meaty menu of chunky riffs, infectious lyrics and raw talent, “Sons Of The North” left you gnawing for more. It was a reinvigorating record and much like Airbourne did, provided a genuine kick in the nuts for people to refocus not on experimentation and expansion of their music but on a simple formula of Rock ‘n’ Roll fury in all its potency.
“This Savage Land” oversees Black Spiders treading familiar paths on their rock ‘n’ roll journey in a continuation of their energised debut. An announcement of the arrival of instruments and the ensuing chaos sets the tone in album opener ‘Knock You Out’. The short sharp punch to the gut that this song packs is just as hard hitting as the hostile lyrics that Pete “Spider” Spiby threatens. This confronting tone is present throughout the album but spikes on tracks such as ‘Young Tongues’ and ‘Stick It To The Man’. Both feature heated mood swings from Spiby that are reflected just as rebelliously in defiant rhythmic stamps of riff driven guitars and crashing drums.
It’s at the album’s halfway point that Black Spiders dare to step into more risky lands. Up to this point they’ve supplied the fans, some who funded this album, with their typical rock music with zero bull*** aesthetics. Now it’s time to do mix it up a bit. The first curveball is delivered in ‘Put Love In Its Place’ where Black Spiders blend melodic stoner rock rhythms with tangible eruptions of riff driven disorder, all in a ballad like format. Another song that has untraditional features is ‘Sleepy Demon’. Over this stoner rock road are cracks in the path where wild weeds of Orange Goblin grooves sprout freely. It’s an interesting way to close the album but does to a good job in reminding people, especially as it’s the album closer, that they are still going to experiment with their sound in order to progress.
Although their reputation and solid perspective of rock music suggest that Black Spiders are seasoned practitioners of their craft, they are still a relatively small band. If you are new to them then this album will undoubtedly seal the deal in understanding what and who they are. Hard hitting ragers such as ‘Teenage Knife Gang’ and the jaunty ‘Trouble’ reveal guitarists Mark Thomas and Ozzy Lister as two bastard children of Motorhead. The testosterone-led single ‘Balls’ practically reeks of musty leather and alcoholic breath from the gig last night. Though not as instantly lovable as their single ‘KISS Tried To Kill Me’, it’s still one of the album’s best examples for mandatory head banging.
"This Savage Land" is not a ground breaking or a nostalgic blast from the past. Overall it is simply a great album that sounds like the band are not trying to take us back to 1980 but instead showing us, contrary to Gene Simmons' opinion, rock is not dead.
