Artist: Toxic Heart
Label: Self-released
Release: 2009
Length: 36:22
Rating: 1.5/5
Hop-a-doo, one-two-three-four and floor it! Four dudes plugged into the mains, whiskey in one hand, guitar in the other, and in a third hand, if only one would grow, a hot “chick” and some action! Every young guy at least dreams of being a rock star. Plenty don’t get that luck. No money, you’re surrounded by dopes who talk you into believing it’s better to wear a tie and say the Our Father at Sunday lunch. Plenty of talents channel their energy elsewhere and slip right past us, like the feeling of grabbing a fistful of sand that then pours out past your wrist…. Then there are the other lucky ones, talented and at the “trough,” but these days they’re harder and harder to spot. And then there are those who want to be rock stars but have no talent. And they’re at the source that lets them slap on that mask anyway. Those are the most dangerous.
“Ride Your Life” serves up music that’s uninventive, inexpressive, bland, numb, predictable and already chewed to death. The production is flat as a pancake, two-dimensional, and doesn’t breathe at all. The guitars barely push anything out of themselves. Luckily the rhythm section is (in places!) more active and brings a bit more turbulence to an otherwise static sonic picture. The vocals are too weak, too thin, they crack inside the lead melodies and can’t carry the choruses up to any atmospheric peaks. The backing vocals fail to create any drama-theater contrasts – a typical song that “dies” in the chorus is Love Is For Fools. The riff in the verse still shows some promise, even though it borrows the single-string chugging of some “long-dead” Running Wild, but it gets watered down in the chorus by a weak and badly matched lead melody. Makin’ Me Bad has a totally chopped-off, flat rhythm line, though the song at least has a promising chorus. The opener Ticket, stuck in the “rut” of weak production, might satisfy Green Day fans, but a real hard rocker who knows what hard rock bands in Western Europe and North America (and even Australia!) do, it won’t. The boxy drum sound kills any dynamics in songs with potential like Like The Way I Feel or One Night Stand. And New Generation, which miraculously even opens up in a minor key? The chorus is in many ways a “rip off” of Breakthrough by Queen.
Happy-go-lucky slackers who lack for nothing play the thousand-times-chewed-up tricks of eighties hard rock’s reach, but the “tricks” can’t get one single solitary hair on your body to stand at attention. Sadly the blame lies with the dreadfully stuffy production. Above all the guitar sound, which comes across as unfinished, archaic, disinterested in expression, witless and clichéd to the core. Like a drunk clinging to a fence, it holds onto its clichés as a carefully vetted shelter against potential “woodworms.” Big Time desperately needs stronger vocals in the chorus, and in the transition between verse and chorus they absolutely should have added depth to the track by throwing in a “cowbell,” etc… Apparently the guys are quick to settle for anything. The song Baby should have been played a touch slower to reflect some of the erotic cosmetics the very concept of the song demands – above all, the “bluesy” guitar ornament in the lead guitar phrase doesn’t come through at all.
The whole thing might not have been so wrong if it had been born 25 years ago, and even then it would be questionable. With such “barefoot” production without any punch, even AC/DC in 1983 wouldn’t have been happy. There’s simply no spark, no fire, no energetic “boost,” no flow. Even the clichéd solos aren’t clearly “separated” from the riff “grip.” That goes for the album in general.
“Ride Your Life” feels like a forced album hiding behind the emblem of “carefree living,” of taking “life easy,” partying it up, rolling a “spliff,” and cracking open a liter of Daniel’s. “Dude, why you stressing yourself out like that? Look, we’re having a blast. Sun’s shining, a liter’s about to go down, my buddy’s got weed in his pocket, the chicks are already losing it…. Screw the squares, screw the old folks, who gotta work so we can rock. Dude, don’t you get that life can be awesome!” Are the guys serious, or is this a one-off project that’ll be pushed back out on the airwaves in two years under a different name? The devil only knows. And no: this time we won’t console ourselves that it’s good for Slovenia, because all Slovenian albums with a “hard rock” label are like that anyway. That’s no excuse anymore.
Lineup
Axl – vocals
Mike – guitar
Rider – bass
Mogy – drums
Production
Tomaž Maras & Miha Pipenbaher
Tracklist
1. Ticket
2. New Generation
3. Love Is For Fools
4. The One
5. Ride Like Life
6. Eyes Of A Broken Man
7. Big Time
8. Baby
9. Makin’ Me Bad
10. One Night Stand
11. Like The Way I Feel
