Ain’t No Time to Sit Down: Review of The American Plague Album, Heart Attack

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.