The Famous Class - "Have You Ever" (pledge music) 2/5

London self styled 'pop-punksters' The Famous Class have been building a bit of a reputation around them over the past year or so. Headline tours of China, bill topping Belgium festival apperanaces, 02 Academy tours.... They must be doing something right. But What?

I gotta admit I'm at loss to describe it. After all there's nothing remarkable on this four tracker at all. OK its it competent and well played, but its so bloody generic it could be by any one of the hundreds of 'You-and-Green-182-at-Six' clones that are chancing their arms all over the world. You can play through this ep and tick all the right boxes for 'pop-rock cliche 101' on every track; wall of fuzz guitar sound, teen angst/coming of age lyrics, mob yell stabs and backing vocal, chorus key changes, middle eight breakdown... hell this stuff is so formulaic it could have been penned by machine.... That's a thought, are TFC the result of some evil Frankenstein experiment to make the most perfectly cliche commercial pop-rock band in the world? There is a hint in the press blurb that came with this ep. Apparently the band applied to be the band in the adverts for a certain diabetes inducing commercial energy drink... and failed. Could it be that even the band themselves see themselves not as musicians but product?

(Note - the question can be answered by a short visit to the bands website, where your bombarded by a series of adverts for pot noodle type snacks before you can explore it... This is not a band, they are an ad agency)

As you can guess this leaves me cold. In a time when the UK music scene is alive with great music by outfits such as The Skuzzies, Elimination, I Divide, Dakesis, Awake and many many more this ep can only be a retrograde step, as it is nothing more than a clone of what the mainstream music industry has been pumping down our throats for the past few years via the likes of Kerrang!! fm etc, and does nothing to help raise the profile of what is really going on on the UK rock scene.

Still horses for course I suspose. You teenies who have yet to experience real music and fans of disposable teen agnst pseudo punk might like it, and good luck to them, but real rock and punk fans will want to give this one a very wide berth indeed.

Not recommended at all.

for fans of.. Greenday, Blink 182, You and Me at Six, Razorlight....

Nickelback - 'Here and Now' (roadrunner) 2.5/5

Alberta mainstream pop rock outfit Nickelback are undoubtedly one of the most commercially successful bands Canada has produced since the mighty Rush, along with their fellow countrymen and label mates Theory of A Wifebeater, they are to many people the sound of their nation and their music is praised and derided in equal measures. So now we have studio album number seven to divide opinion amongst critics and music fans alike.

Now I gotta admit I'm no Nickelback fan to say the least, but when I first gave this one a spin I had a very pleasant surprise. The opening track This Means War is actually quite good. Not a beer bottle, hooker or cliched stadium rock riff in sight. Instead we get a set of riffs that tip the old titfer towards the likes of Megadeth and some quite intelligent biting anti-war lyrics all wrapped into a song that is possibly the best thing I've heard this band produce. (and yes I have heard most of their output in a professional capacity). But it doesn't stop there a little further on you get Kiss It Goodbye, another fairly good track that sounds a little Wednesday 13 and tackles the price of fame. Bloody Hell two Nickelback tracks that DON'T make me wanna vomit, and they are on the same album. Has hell frozen over?

OK reality check time, there are 11 tracks on this one, and apart from the two mentioned above the rest is typical Nickelback fare of pseudo-macho birds and beer fueled light-weight rockers and cheese laden MTV-u-like power ballads. Admitted well played pseudo-macho birds and beer fueled light-weight rockers and cheese laden MTV-u-like power ballads, but pretty boring and uninspiring fodder none the less. Still its all safe and unoffensive stuff, thankfully devoid of the misogynistic nastiness of Theory Of A Wifebeater and a better class of mainstream wallpaper muzak as well. Nickelback fans will lap it up and I know the likes of Planet Rock and Kerrang fm will be blasting this stuff out all day for the next two years or so.

In conclusion, this album has done nothing to convert me into a fan, but it has shown me that if Nickelback got off their backsides, and broke away from their safe mainstream rock formula, and followed the path laid down on the likes of This Means War they could silence a lot of critics and develop into a band worth listening to.

Try Before You Buy

For Fans of... 30 Seconds To Mars, Theory Of A Wifebeater, My Extraordinary.....

Black Veil Brides - 'Set The World On Fire' (lava - universal) 4.5/5

Ok, I've been putting reviewing this on off long enough, time to bite the bullet. Now I know hollywood glam revaivalists BlackVeil Brides are a bit of a marmite act. Everyone I know either praises them as the future of rock and roll, or dismisses them out of hand as 'teenie bopping Kiss clones'  and very rarely I do meet anyone with a take it leave it stand point. As for me I've been living with BVB for a while now (the girlfriend is a HUGE fan, to the point of having Andy Biersack posters up around the flat)  and I  have been trying to keep an open mind and judge the band and their music for what it really is, rather be be swayed by the opinions and preconceptions of others.

Now, as you can guess I've got to know this record pretty well over recent days and weeks, and surprisingly I'm still not sick of it. My first impression was that it was a musically very good record, and I still feel that way. The band are tight, more than competent on the playing side of things, they have a fine line in writing very catchy but reasonably intelligent hard rock tracks, and to me far importantly they are not afraid to wear a few influences on their nylon net shirt sleeves. Opener New Religion has a waft of Dokken about it with Jake Pitts even provides some George Lynch style little widdles to punctuate the song. On God Bless You we get some classic Ratt style hair metal riffage coupled with a nice commercial hooky chorus that manages to keep itself firmly on the right side of pop rock cheese.  Rebel Love Song is a fantastic glam metal rock out that reminds me bit of Welsh glam kings Tigertailz; even the unavoidable power ballad Saviour, manages to keep itself listenable with a Scorpions style build up and some primal scream vocals at the climax.Other noticeable influences include AFI, Kiss (natch) and even some old school Saxon style metal.

OK before you say, "so what they have ripped all their fave elements and made a sound out of it" I will tell you that all bands do this, show me a musician who will not honestly state who and what has influenced him and point where he has used that influence and I'll show you a man who speaketh with forked tongue. The bottom line is that although you can see clearly where BVB are coming from the final whole is still packed in one all encompassing sound and style that is unquestionably  the Black Veil Brides.

As for the band image, which I think provides a stumbling block for just as many people it attracts, all I can say is so what? Whether the idea to follow the glam goth road came from the band, their record company, or a combination of both I care not. It's nothing new. Every musical generation has those who decide to experiment with make up, face paint and / or teen baiting androgyny... from Screaming Lord Sutch, Bowie, Kiss and Alex Harvey, via Twisted Sister, Poison and Mercyful Fate to Marylin Mansun, Slipknot and beyond. Evey generation needs musical heroes to act as a mummy shocker, and for the modern teenies BVB are it. It only should become an issue when it becomes a case of style over substance, and that is definately not the case here. So they are all good looking lads who girls scream and throw themselves at? whats the problem? jealousy? cos isn't it a position we all have dreamed about being in at somepoint?

In short, this is a great record, look beyond the image and get into the music on offer, cos this is an album to take note of.

for fans of... Kids In Glass Houses, Avenged Sevenfold, 30 Seconds To Mars, Ratt, Dokken, Motley Crue etc...