What ever it is about Northern Ireland, they just can’t seem to stop producing incredible hard rock bands. Like Galway and hard-core, Northern Ireland is cutting the next wave of British heavy metal all by itself with bands like Million $ Reload, The Answer and now Trucker Diablo laying the foundations for what could hopefully become the next big scene. That is, if we’ve had enough of the soulful guitars and ridiculously emotional lyrics about how great cartoons used to be.
The Devil Rhythm is a fantastic first album from Trucker Diablo. Unlike other modern-day hard rock bands, they don’t seem to feel the need to release one catchy hard rock single followed by an album of Nickelback rip-offs. What you get instead are ten furious paced, no messing rock ‘n’ roll tracks that sound more like an established artists greatest hits and not a new bands début album. They fuse classic heaviness with modern catchiness all polished off with some pounding production. Opening songs Drink Beer Destroy, Juggernaught and Big Truck crash on your ear drums and continuously beat you into submission; overpowering you with every riff and selling themselves as the saviours of hard rock in Ireland. But it doesn’t end there!
Stand Up and Fight again relays the bands ability to perfectly deliver heavy rock with a catch before the dirty guitar laden Voodoo adds a little emotional maturity to their lyrics, without destroying the album’s party feel. Never Too Late To Sin adds even more heaviness to the sound with shredding solos, brain beating drums and multiple helpings of organized chaos in the second half. Dirty Love and Black and Blue continue the albums now trademark heavy but catchy approach. Around this point you could wonder if the album would have been more balanced with a few more soulful moments or ballads, but that doesn’t last long, not when there’s such a wealth of sheer force to deal with. There has been so much watered down music on the airwaves recently that the world needs a good kick in the ass like this record. Plus, Motörhead never needed ballads.
When Angles Die gives one last fast paced pounding before the blues styled Rattlehead wraps it up. Ten out of ten and a serious record for any fans of hard rock. Trucker Diablo have been treading stages since 2008, gained the praise of hard rock royalty and critics alike and plied their trade alongside some of the biggest names in the business. Now it’s time for the public to stand up and take notice of what could potentially be one of the most successful rock bands to emerge from the North since Therapy. It took this writer a long time to get round to these guys; do not make the same mistake.