Knoxify

A weekly peek into what makes the Knoxville music scene phe­nom­e­nal. We’ll be bring­ing you album + con­cert reviews from the Knoxville area and inter­views with local musi­cians + peo­ple behind the scenes.

Heart Attack, The Amer­i­can Plague’s lat­est album, came with a lot of bag­gage. Would it be a for­ward step from their last album, God Bless The Amer­i­can Plague? Had the guys topped out with GBTAP, and were on the slip­pery slope down­hill? Could they be any­more badass?

Well, the abbre­vi­ated review is: Yes. No. It appears so.

That’s an apt clas­si­fi­ca­tion for Heart Attack. A more badass Amer­i­can Plague album, cause that’s sim­ply what it is. Right along­side hav­ing a more cohe­sive group­ing of tunes. There’s no shun­ning God Bless The Amer­i­can Plague. It will always be a top notch piece in the TAP cat­a­log, or cat­alougue for our British readers.

The sound, the songs, the lyrics, every­thing is a pro­gres­sion from who they are and what they’ve done, yet still has that unique­ness that make The Amer­i­can Plague The Amer­i­can Plague.

Heart Attack is a bit less angry, but retains the speed and straight up rock ‘n roll that the band has prided them­selves on for years. Its a dri­ving album, always mov­ing fur­ther, never look­ing back.

The open­ing track, “Some­thing Epic,” is a very omi­nous pre­am­ble to what’s about to be unleashed. The title track rachets up the momen­tum, whilst mak­ing you bob your head and clap along.

“Ani­mal Mother” is an old school rocker with speed and clar­ity. The rhythms drive with a har­mo­nious abso­lu­tion unfet­tered by pre­ten­sions that would make a weaker effort less authen­tic in the ambi­tion to achieve the staunch power of pure dri­ven lines.

“Servant’s Day” pounds a really good bass line, envelop­ing and often smoth­er­ing, sure to give the woofers a work­out and carry a per­pet­ual kinetic surge to the ionosphere.

“Let It Roll” is the gut­tural, pri­mor­tal rocker with teeth. A vis­ceral energy per­vades every churn­ing and damn­ing slam of the axe, crack­ling to insan­ity but return­ing from the edge just long enough to shore up an unset­tling, though mon­u­men­tal, flir­ta­tion with dark­ness and the pain of uncertainty.

“Far and Away” has the feel of an AC/DC tune, an almost dron­ing per­sis­tence with bite and vine­gar and obstreper­ous rib­aldry, beg­ging you not to like them, but sar­cas­ti­cally know­ing there’s a wry smirk upon your face. A taste of Hard Rock clas­si­cism branch­ing into new territory.

“Last Drop” is a ballsy, raw song. Sonic like a blender flay­ing ice, yet cap­ti­vat­ing, it’s impos­si­ble to deny some atavis­tic mad­ness that seems almost inher­ent else­where to some tribal syn­co­pa­tion of mad­ness in the rites of a hell­ish war dirge. An inchoate per­ver­sity that tempts one for more.

Another pos­i­tive is the knowl­edge that all of these songs will trans­late well live. That’s what The Amer­i­can Plague is most known for, their kick ass con­certs. Every song will not be amped up to eleven, oh no, they’ll be up ‘round a hun­dred and forty seven. Maybe a hun­dred and forty eight, its not an exact scince. Just be assured that The Amer­i­can Plague will bring the rock ‘n roll thun­der that peo­ple like Lemmy, Iggy and Bon have brought before them.

Logo snagged from the bands web­site.