Label: AFM Records
Release date: July 31, 2020
Production: Søren Andersen
Album length: 49.24 min
Genre: Hard Rock / Heavy Metal
Rating: 8.5/10
Thundermother is an all-female Swedish rock’n’roll quartet that looked done for back in 2017, when all four members of the then-lineup walked out on founding member and guitarist Filippa Nässil. But fate had other plans, and in a relatively short time she managed to rebuild the crew, which became a quartet again. Last year the band was already tearing up the stages of Europe’s biggest festivals and even played a proper headlining tour. Their first ever. In the German-speaking part of Europe and in Scandinavia, Thundermother can already boast an enviable fan base.
Bands made up entirely of women are always fascinating to follow. Sweden once had a seriously promising band of that kind, which put out a nice string of albums and then fell apart. They were called Crucified Barbara. Throw that name out there and a few “lucky ones” – living in the hermetically stuffy land of “boutique rockers”, squeezed between the Kolpa and the Alps, can already guess what we’re about to talk about.
With “Heat Wave”, Thundemother have delivered a very mature piece of work. There are definitely too many songs on it, but then thirteen, the number that made it onto the new album, is a kind of lucky number too, since it presents the band in a new, refreshed form as an exceptionally coherent unit, one that hadn’t delivered this kind of consistency before “Heat Wave”. The new album reflects newfound enthusiasm, a vision of clear ambitions, passionate dedication and rock-solid focus on hitting the target. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. And the band went straight through the fire of “purification” and came out with a “priceless” experience.
Granted, the album is predictable and the girls aren’t discovering some musical revolution. You can feel quite a few influences from bands like AC/DC, which means Thundermother will go down well with all the AC/DC clones à la Airbourne too, while the rowdy, hooligan streak is further injected with inspiration from Guns N’ Roses. The band is totally “stripped down”, honest and straight-up. Frontal. The hooks are simple, the rhythms catchy and charging. A mostly “adrenaline” album that invites you to a hellish party, soaked in burning high-octane fuel and loaded with clouds of cigarette smoke and alcohol fumes. So what sets these girls apart from your average bunch of boutique rockers? Hard work and diligence. Sheer graft. On top of that, the new lineup has developed outstanding chemistry, with clear bonds of mutual awareness. I caught the band on the stage of the Bang Your Head festival, where their sheer swagger sent a good thousand heads into proper delirium. They know how to be “rough” and biting. Singer Guernica is a devil of a vocalist. She has an incredibly distinctive, piercing voice that speaks with authority and dominance. The songs definitely come alive with her. Guitarist Filippa Nässil is seriously well-versed in minimalist tricks that nonetheless ignite instantly and full-bloodedly. The girl knows how to lay down a flammable solo that keeps the voltage up on the otherwise sharpened-to-a-point tracks. She also dabbles in slide tricks (at the festival gig she wasn’t shy about some “bottleneck” playing either). The rhythm section builds the desired thunderous roar and contrasting depth, and boosts, or rather intensifies, the sheer volume of the sound picture. There are too many tracks, though, ten would have been enough, since the style is predictable. But like I said. The girls kick with all their untamed energy, kick hard and with all their elemental passion and heart. And on top of that, they’re seriously good musicians. And like I said. They’re not satisfied with small. Only the best counts for them. That’s why the songs are polished, and the album builds intensity and high dynamics.
The funny thing is that once you define a style that’s hard rock at its core and openly pals around with elements of blues, heavy metal and even punk, you’ll (almost certainly) never peel yourself away from it. A change would be too radical and the risk too big. That means a certain standard has been set for the future too. Revivalism is always welcome, since it knocks on the hearts of hard rock fans and old-school metal lovers of the classic days very effectively, but on the other hand it’s clear that the band’s evolution is somehow wrapped up. From here on you know exactly what kind of album to expect from Thundermother. Given the great crew and some serious experience, it’s clear the girls won’t leave us in the lurch in the future either.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Loud And Alive
2. Dog From Hell
3. Back In ‘76
4. Into The Mud
5. Heat Wave
6. Sleep
7. Driving In Style
8. Free Ourselves
9. Mexico
10. Purple Sky
11. Ghosts
12. Somebody Love Me
13. Bad Habits
Lineup:
Guernica Mancini – vocals
Filippa Nässil – guitar
Majsan Lindberg – bass
Emlee Johansson – drums
