BLACK STONE CHERRY - "FAMILY TREE" (2018)

BLACK STONE CHERRY - "FAMILY TREE"
(Running time: 52:54 minutes; 13 songs)
("Mascot Records"; 2018; CD):

Hey guys, yes, already the next record-review is here and now aimed at you, yes, and this sort of like again after one more too sweaty and too heated night… hot time, summer in the city, I guess… and here and now you get my record-review on the (brand)new BLACK STONE CHERRY full-length-album titled "FAMILY TREE" released still sort of pretty recently this year in 2018 via "MASCOT RECORDS" on a beautiful desgined digi-pak CD (and pretty much also on LP I would guess). I discovered them sort of just last year or two years ago or so with their phenomenal 2016 full-length-album masterpiece "KENTUCKY" and so I was more than only a bit curious when I finally got aware of that "FAMILY TREE" was released and, oh hell yeahr, that huge curiosity of me, myself, and I was far more than justified because with "FAMILY TREE" BLACK STONE CHERRY in 2018 absolutely remained on the fantastic and incredible high level of skills and qualities they have reached and conquered with "KENTUCKY" and they even enriched and varied it all even more. Compared to/with "KENTUCKY" the first impression that you get from/of "FAMILY TREE" is that it's far more colourful and that it shines in a by far more warm(er) light (at least that was my first impression) and this first impression only grows stronger when you then finally listening to it. A real monster, a true beast of an album with a very huge own identity, filled with huge and big valuable loads of nutrious fresh ideas and that's massively bubbling over with life. The Classic Rock and/or Vintage Rock influences grew very big this time and are massively enriched with very strong (also sometimes tribalistic arranged) Soul marks and cultivated with very strong and damn cool and very present Gospel inspired (or so it seems to me) passages that give the songs and the whole album not only a very special and damn own and unique character and identity but also a pretty different and with that also a very colourful and soulful timbre and all is melted together by phenomenal songwriting full of exciting twists and turns and filled with tons of ironclad-like grapping moments and filled with very diverse arrangements and an in general highly multi-layered and multi-facetted compositorial approach of writing and delivering songs with a very 'rousing mind-set' and filled to the maximum with high octane energy and marked by very strong and alive-lively dynamics as well as the incredible huge ability to write and create with each and every song a through'n'through damn hymn and each as exciting, grapping, rousing, touching, and interesting as the other, oh boy, fantastic, and all done'n'delivered by masterly skilled musicians (as well as songwriters). All is marked by highly charismatic lead vocals, highly diverse and really bright and loud singing guitars, a warm and yet perwful and loud walkin'n'talkin' bass, really powerful punching drumming, and all is enriched by very intense and atmospheric backing choirs and brilliant keyboard and organ parts, various horns, and a breath-taking percussion section. It's just absolutely larger than life and damn groundbreaking and just a damn rich and a highly diverse total masterpiece of an album, one of the strongest of and in and for 2018 for sure, with a totally unique character so that any band comparisions are at the end of the day sort of nonsense, yes, but if you really need some other names then you can loosely find BLACK STONE CHERRY's "FAMILY TREE"  standing on a very independently position somewhere between LYNYRD SKYNYRD, the BLUES PILLS, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, and BRAND NEW SIN as well as we all probably won't get an album like "FAMILY TREE" that soon again with bringing Alterantive/Modern Rock and Classic/Vintage Rock so perfectly and easy flowing together so that fans of for example NICKELBACK will love it as well as also fans of for example LED ZEPPELIN will also love it anyhow, too. Nothing but an incredible fantastic and an absoultely outstanding album, an amazing one, yes, that's it what BLACK STONE CHERRY's "FAMILY TREE" is and all is then at the end of the day made round by great lyrics, a gorgeous artwork, and a perfect warm and earthy production-sound. This is 'highliest' recommended to any fan of true and real and just amazing and outstanding Rock/Rock &  Roll music outta there and if you are in that target-group you should know what you have to do by now and right now, point and fact.

(10 of 10 points)

http://www.blackstonecherry.com/ (-the link to the homepage of the band)

BLACK STONE CHERRY - "SOUTHERN FRIED FRIDAY NIGHT" (2018, "FAMILY TREE")

BLACK LABEL SOCIETY - "GRIMMEST HITS" (2018)

BLACK LABEL SOCIETY - "GRIMMEST HITS"
(Running time: 55:56 minutes; 12 songs)
("Spinefarm Records"; 2018; CD):

At the 19th of January of 2018 Zakk Wylde's BLACK LABEL SOCIETY releasesed their newest and also already 10th full-length-album via "SPINEFARM RECORDS" titled "GRIMMEST HITS" and here and now you finally get my record-review on it. I always thought that the BLACK LABEL SOCIETY does sound like a bastard out of OZZY OSBOURNE (surely also especially vocal-wise), CORROSION OF CONFORMITY (think about their "DELIVERANCE" period), LYNYRD SKYNYRD (for the huge guitar driven Southern Rock taste), and a bit of DOWN, BRAND NEW SIN and also aslight bit PANTERA (due to that very special grooving guitars with that singing 'southern flair'), and then all mixed through with some good dirty 1970's and also a bit 1980's inspired Classic Rock or Vinatge Rock with some very slight Blues notes in it and here and there some old/early ALICE IN CHAINS reminiscences and all served very self-contained, yes, and that's exactly the way how their "GRIMMEST HITS" rock and groove in a really heavy and (sort of) 'down-tuned' but still and nowadays first-and-foremost always very smooth and also nicely melodic way out of the speakers. And while I sit here and having listened to BLACK LABEL SOCIETY's "GRIMMEST HITS" for nearly countless times since last month (I bought it right when it was finally released) and again listen to it one more time and probably for many more times to come, yes, Ireally haven't that much to say and with what I have said so far and with what I'm going to say adding to it with the next three or four sentences it will be all what I have to say to/about it and not because this would be anyhow anything like a weak album or anything like 'unspectacular' or what the hell else ever, nah, it's just... I really damn like this album a lot but beside saying this and pointing out that this very one here will be probably one of the heaviest and deepest but yet all the time also one of the smoothest and one of the most soul- and playful and also one of the most hymnal (in a pretty much absoultely clichee-free way) albums in Hard Rock we all will experience being released in 2018 I haven't that much more to say simply because BLACK LABEL SOCIETY's "GRIMMEST HITS" simply completly speaks for its own and this in its own tongue'n'tone. But maybe you now already all that you have to know? Maybe there's no need to 'extend' this very one here and now? In this particular case here I feel so. And so let me close this review with pointing out that the songwriting is very intense and atmospheric and filled with so much honest emotions and being 'music-wise' extremly playful and also soulful that you will nothing but sink deep and deeper into this fabulous songs; with pointing out that the damn charismatic heartfelt vocals really shine bright, the guitar work is one of the very best you will ever experience, the (hammond) organ adds a lot of special flavour to it all, and the rhythm section is a just very damn massive and decent force; and with pointing out that this album will give you goosepimples again and again. If there would be maybe only one or two a bit 'faster paced' songs to shake it one or two times maybe a little bit up then my rating would maybe be even a bit better... but after I especially love the ballads "THE ONLY WORDS", "THE DAY THAT HEAVEN HAD GONE AWAY" and "NOTHING LEFT TO SAY" I am maybe also not so sure about that after all... how-ever, strong lyrics, a fantastic (and also sort of pretty ironical or humouristic) artwork, and a perfect warm, dirty, earthy, and heavy production sound round it all finally up. Nothing left to say, if I would be you, I would make sure to get my hands on a copy of BLACK LABEL SOCIETY's "GRIMMEST HITS" (finally) as soon as possible.

(8,5 of 10 points)

http://blacklabelsociety.net/ (-the link to the homepage of the band)

BLACK LABEL SOCIETY - "THE ONLY WORDS" (2018, "GRIMMEST HITS")

BLACK STONE CHERRY - "KENTUCKY" (2016)

BLACK STONE CHERRY - "KENTUCKY"
(Running time: 52:37 minutes; 13 songs)
("Mascot Records"; 2016; CD + DVD):

Hey guys, here we go again, (relatively) late night, (relatively) late post, first saturday post (we will see if more will follow later today), and also first November post in general. And after the last posts were sort of 'exclusively' reviews on 2017 releases, yes, I now felt like doing finally again a review on an already a little bit older album, yes, and so now here comes my review on the 2016 absolutely masterpiece album titled "KENTUCKY" that the almighty BLACK STONE CHERRY delivered to us last year. Before "KENTUCKY" BLACK STONE CHERRY were somehow pretty to totally unknown to me... shame on me... and then they came and conquered and they conquered in an incredible supreme and absolutely overwhelming way with their absolutely brilliant and just fantastic hard and heavy, massively grooving and powerful-punching, yet very hymnal and melodic, play- and soulful, anthemic and catchy, and all the time very intense and atmospheric and also filled with emotions to the max damn honest, authentic, fresh, suprising, grapping, and sympathic surely real Rock music somehwere between definitely by Blues and also even Soul and Gospel as well as Country influenced and inspired Hard'n'Heavy Rock & Roll, strong deep down dirty Southern Rock, and strong fresh Modern'n'Alternative Rock marks and impressions; maybe to be best located on a very stand-alone position somewhere between BRAND NEW SIN on the one side, PUDDLE OF MUDD on the other, NICKELBACK on the next, and LYNYRD SKYNYRD on the final side, and a bit BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN floating around somewhere in the middle of it all, and if/when you throw some LED ZEPPELIN and some AC/DC and here and there some few GUNS'N'ROSES as well as some few ALTER BRIDGE in the mix, hell yeahr, and then (definitely) keep in mind that BLACK STONE CHERRY play their very own style of (Hard) Rock music, yes, then you will have a pretty good starting point of what to expect what a monster they what means BLACK STONE CHERRY have unleashed on us all with this masterpiece named "KENTUCKY". And, btw, I don't know for sure if 'Christian Rock' is here and now a or the proper term to describe BLACK STONE CHERRY properly, hm, maybe not, but for all what I got BLACK STONE CHERRY, rocking from out of the so called 'Bible Belt', are a very open religious (christian) band and for me that's all good and fine - so if you have a problem with it then maybe check your head one or two times or as many times as needed, yes, because then the Problem maybe 'simply' lies within you. Okay, back to the topic: Expect an incredible and totally asskicking and boneshaking, heavy and forceful and yet very, very melodic and symphonic, really singing and bright shining, very unique and characteristic, highly diverse and all the time multi-layered guitar work (no matter if we take the riffs and rhythms or the leads and solos, it's all just really larger-than-life), backed up by a diverse and precise, asstight and just beauitfully composed and arranged rhythm section,and above all really fantastic full and powerful lead vocals with a strong own flavour and identity, oh yes, and all is massively enriched with various backround choirs and singing(s) and various diverse different other instruments, flowing and melting all perfectly together. And, yes, this is really perfect. So, yes, then all is melted together and made whole by absolutely rousing, grapping, exciting, diverse, and also pretty self-contained songwriting. And that this guys are very skilled musicians I do only mention here and now for 'reasons of completness'. The whole "KENTUCKY" album is completly filled with just pure platinum hits, from start to finish, but if you want to know my absolute favorites then currently I would name you "LONG RIDE", "THE RAMBLER", "SHAKIN' MY CAGE", "IN OUR DREAMS", "THE WAY OF THE FUTURE", the damn great covertune "WAR", "CHEAPER TO DRINK ALONE", and "DARKEST SECRET". But the (anyhow only few) not mentioned songs are also purest gold and platinum, so at the end of the day it really doesn't matter what song(s) you pick they all 'simply' totally rule. So, yes, I can only recommend this absolutely amazing and fantastic album and if you still don't know it, why the damn bloody hell ever, then make finally sure to change this and go out and get this masterpiece of an album as soon as possible.
(10 of 10 points)
http://www.blackstonecherry.com/ (-the link to the homepage of the band)

BLACK STONE CHERRY - "LONG RIDE" (2016, "KENTUCKY")