Band
Dezperadoz
Title
The Legend And The Truth
Type
LP/EP
Company
AFM
YOR
2006
Style
Hard Rock
Popular Reviews
Dezperadoz - The Legend And The Truth - 2006 - AFM Records
Track Listing:1. Legend and the Truth 2. Dust of History 3. First Blood 4. Deadman Walkin' 5. Rawhide 6. Tombstone 7. Hellbilly Square 8. March to Destiny 9. OK Corral 10. Shootout 11. Look into the Barrel of My Gun 12. Earp's Vendetta 13. Friends Till the End 14. Echoes of Eternity 15. Alex |
Western themes in hard rock have been touched on before with the most well-known probably being Bon Jovi's
Wanted Dead or Alive and Metallica's
Unforgiven. The German band Dezperadoz, a hybrid of musicians from bands like Onkel Tom and Pink Cream 69, committed to a fully themed CD and I think they pulled it of quite well.
On
The Legend and the Truth, they loosely tell the tale of the iconic Old West lawman Wyatt Earp from birth onto his friendship with Doc Holiday and the infamous gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Musically most of the numbers are standard power/hard rock quite similar to when the 80's bands decided to try and follow an edgier, grunge feel or you could consider them a light version of Black Label Society--pinched harmonics minus the tobbacco spit. A few fun numbers are added in that don't always fit the rest musically. 'Rawhide' is a bang-on send up of the original, but they misstep on the two-step of the instrumental Spanish guitar piece and 'Hellbilly Square'. Here and there are various sound effects (gunfire) and in between many of the songs are some short, heavily-accented spoken bits which were misfires for me. Where the band really excels is the full symphonic pieces like the opening track (which is eventually cycled back into the closing piece) and tracks like 'Dust of History' and 'Friends Till The End'.
It doesn't take itself too seriously, so if you love the Clint Eastwood-Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns like 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' and wished they just had some metal in them, then you'll consider this release a flash of gold in the flowing stream of mud and dirt out there.
Bottom Line: A catchy shoot-em-up. Yee-ha!
Rating: 4
--Nailer 09.26.07