Artist: Thunder
Label: Frontiers Records
Released: 2006
Rating: 3.5/5
Thunder. The band that put themselves on the map for the wider public with their debut “Laughing On Judgement Day”. It scored a few hits, then rattled off one solid but painfully predictable album after another.
As you can tell from the title ‘Robert Johnson’s Tombstone’, this is yet another classic hard rock album, soaked in bluesy roots and elements that lean, often very obviously, on seventies hard rock. All the typical Thunder ingredients are back again, just like on its predecessors. The songs range from classic half-acoustic ballads to simply built but wickedly catchy riffs, and guitar playing that’s excellent across the board, filling out and dressing up the basic riffing material on the record, which results in lovely melodies. And of course it’s all seasoned with the heartfelt, sensual vocals of Danny Bowes! Typical Brits. With them, everything is real in rock music, whatever genre they take on! Even if it’s just another cliché….
The standout on the album is the track Last Man Standing, which shows Thunder at their heaviest on the whole record. It has an epic structure, and at this point the album grows impressively as the atmosphere lifts. It’s precisely this injection of epic melody that sets the song apart from the otherwise very predictable tracks that make up most of the album. Simply put, the riffs picked are, almost one and all, the kind you feel you’ve heard long ago, in a different production. A different one, but of course a more authentic one. They’re seriously expressive riffs, sure, but at one point they’ll remind you of AC/DC, at another of Free, at another of Led Zeppelin. The riffs on the tracks are varied. Nice, right? But predictable and heard before. And on top of that, convincing in delivery, but sadly already invented.
The album will reward those of you who aren’t burdened by the legacy of the bands mentioned, whose riffs Thunder draw on once again on “Robert Johnson’s Tombstone”. The album does bring Johnson back to life brilliantly, with the stubbornly stiff old-school riffing it serves up! It’s really not hard to conjure up a bar counter full of whiskey shots, rooms filled with cigarette smoke, swaggering blokes pestering the barmaids late into the night, mass brawls in saloons, in short, the pastimes born of boredom, idle thoughts and “bluesing” from bar to bar – so the Thunder record has a meaningful essence, a clear beat, the point of rock music’s rebellion!
Thunder won’t win many new fans with the new album, most likely not a single one. “Robert Johnson’s Tombstone” will be snapped up by fans of the classics and fans of the band. The one weakness is, once again, the antithesis of a thesis that, in its negation, can gnaw at rockers’ brains instead of freeing them. And it goes: “Sincere, but cliché”. That doesn’t mean the new Thunder don’t deserve at least a quick spin in the CD player.
Lineup
Danny Bowes – vocals
Ben Matthews – guitar, keyboards
Luke Morley – guitar
Chris Childs – bass
Harry James – drums
Production
Luke Morley
Track list
1. Robert Johnson’s Tombstone
2. Dirty Dream
3. Million Faces
4. Don’t Wanna Talk About Love
5. Devil Made Me Do It
6. Last Man Standing
7. My Darkest Hour
8. Andy Warhol Said
9. What A Beautiful Day
10. It’s All About You
11. Stubborn Kinda Love
Album length: 52.45
