God's Revolver is Deadly

[originally published at Decoymusic.com]



I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that Provo, UT is a shitty place to live. So shitty in fact that the dudes in God’s Revolver have committed themselves to a "Live Fast, Die Young” attitude – cause fuck it, when you come from Provo, UT, what’ve you got to lose.

God’s Revolver do the whole 70s revivalist thing but with a Gainesville punk edge to it that makes the songs sound more honest. Listening to Little Black Horse Where You Going With Your Dead Rider? you really get the feeling that vocalist Reid Rouse’s liver is corroding, that guitarists Jon Larsen and Trey Gardner really have an unhealthy infatuation with fast cars and loose women, and that drummer Elliot Secrist is 3 short steps away from Keith Moon-like self-destruction. These dudes aren’t selling records, they're living the dream – the shitty, starving, sexed-up dream of every young punk who loves bikes and bitches.

Rouse attacks the microphone with a swagger seldom seen since ’77. “Dead Rider Theme (This Long and Lonely Drive to Hell)” is just that – an anthem for your headfirst dive into a pool with no water, the song you hear before snorting the biggest line of your life. “How long does it take to drive to hell?” Rouse asks, knowing the answer is, “Not long,” at the speed these fucks are traveling. On “Cantina Poetry Blues” it’s Rouse again asking the questions and pointing fingers - “Whose fucking bed are you sleeping in tonight?”



“Boxes Done Buried” is the sort of backwoods bluegrass sung by bikers in leather jackets and Wranglers. “Holy Breath” is a desert meditation akin to the sobering effects of the sun rising over a desert sky, some seriously different shit and a perfectly placed moment of respite, a break from all the thrashy Southern. “Iron Fuck” follows, another anthem to the "Live Fast, Die Young" mantra. “Roca Del Desierto” opens with Spanish-sounding, finger-picked guitar and closes with brutal gang vocals something like a pack of wolves howling at the night sky. You can’t help but think that this is what the fucking Eagles would have sounded like if they had, ya know, balls.

Little Black Horse Where You Going With Your Dead Rider? is Mississippi Delta Blues meets Motorhead-era metal with a touch of East Coast punk, and it works because God’s Revolver are the real deal, five dudes hell bent for pleasure and the pain that excess inevitably brings.



mp3: "Boxes Done Buried"
myspace: www.myspace.com/godsrevolver