Artist: No Bros
Label: Edel Records
Release: 2006
Rating: 3.5/5
The legendary Austrian band has reunited twenty years after breaking up, and has finally managed to record a new album! No Bros are no newcomers to the music world. They’re a band that released four excellent albums in the eighties and also played on the soil of the late Yugoslavia in that decade. They also once played big halls alongside heavyweights like Saxon, Motorhead, Gillan, and Ten Years After. They were armed with devilishly expressive riffs and a vocalist with a seriously English accent! They sounded modern English. Of course, today there’s no trace left of spandex, glam, and rowdy teased-up longhairs, but the band members’ outlook on music, deep in their souls, has stayed untouched.
No Bros, from Innsbruck, have come back together in nearly the original lineup, the exception being new singer Lem Enzinger, who previously sang with U8 and with Schubert, the band of No Bros guitarist Klaus Schubert.
As the album title already tells you, this is all about longing for the good old days, and in the new songs No Bros keep turning and returning to them, unstoppably. The band once again serves up a proper mix of “hard n’ heavy rock”, full of seductive bombast, mostly at a mid-tempo pace, with punchy, penetrating riffs artfully woven into the music and filled out by great interplay with the keyboards (especially Hammond B3-type organs, which consistently and harmoniously build up the band’s heavy, elemental sound). The songs deliver real anthems that no fan of the heavy metal industry would be ashamed of. The new vocalist “Lem” is also a carefully chosen man who deservedly justifies the spot he holds in the band’s singing role. His voice is aggressive, authoritative, and unmistakably determined. He shines equally strong in every section, and when he takes a run-up into the highest registers, No Bros’ whole sound gains extra dimensions of melodic pomp and adrenaline-fueled bombast. In the highest registers, Lem’s vocal timbre, down to the very vibrato, fleetingly recalls the wildness of David DeFeis (Virgin Steele). “Hungry For The Good Times” is truly a record that screams with the desire to make music again among the musicians united under the name No Bros. The material is played all-out, you can feel the drive and the enthusiasm, the production is lively and aggressive, the musicians’ approach is heartfelt, and the songs are polished to the max (solos included). Just right to pump adrenaline into your blood, and just right for steering clear of any complexity that would take away from the album’s punch. The songs are accomplished, which means we get expressive choruses and richly seasoned transitional passages. No Bros don’t go nuts in them, but build melodic switch-ups with a perfect sense of cohesive songwriting. In places the electricity of the mood is tastefully boosted by three-part harmonies, while the special “purple feel” magic is brought into the music by the aforementioned Hammond B3. In the dramatic atmosphere the organ brings, the standout winner of the new No Bros album is the mystical track Caledonia.
So No Bros haven’t strayed an inch from their legacy. Even in the new millennium they resolutely breathe life into their mission as a band born with the explosion of the N.W.O.B.H.M. But at their core, No Bros draw from a tradition that follows the guidelines of classic hard rock, and within the colorful spectrum of all the known “hard rock” bands in rock history, it’s easier to place them closer to those classic bands that like to flirt with classical music (Rainbow) than to those that draw ideas for their music mostly from the blues (Whitesnake).
“Hungry For The Good Times” is an excellent “come back” album that lives up to the quality No Bros offered back in the day, picking up exactly where the band left off in 1986. Welcome back, guys, and all I can say is that a person can only wish for more records like this from you!
Lineup
Lem Enzinger – vocals
Klaus Schubert – guitar
Nik P. Opperer – keyboards
Michael Ausserhofer – bass
Franz Heumader – drums
Production
No Bros
Track list
1. Manifest Your Destiny
2. Hello Hello
3. Three Horned Dragon
4. Way More Of This
5. Hungry For The Good Times
6. Carry On
7. Caledonia
8. What’s Going On In Paradise
9. Greed For Flesh
10. Blind
Album length: 49:10
