Texas Hippie Coalition – Rollin’

Take look at the band’s name. Take a look at the song titles. Take a look at the front cover. It’s more then enough to form a first opinion of this band, right? Right.
And once you spin this record there is no doubt; this is a big, dirty, country inspired, metal driven record.

Right from the start you can’t help but think of Down, but as the album progress other influences start surfacing. There is a fair dose of Lynyrd Skynryd, Willie Nelson, ZZ Top, Johnny Cash and nonetheless Pantera.

So the band does sounds like they look, but are they any good?

Actually yes and even thou there was no element of surprise when listening to Rollin’ for the first time, there is no denying that there are some really good tunes on Rollin’. The band’s approach to writing music is fairly simple and the simple melodies are actually very effective and catchy, however dirty they might be. That’s the characteristics of the album in general and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these tunes found their way to one of the many Southern strip joints.

On the other hand the music is heavy, guitars are downtuned and rhythm section is massive. Big Dad Ritch (yes that’s what he calls himself) delivers some fine vocals, but often sounds like Phil Anselmo, way too often. Not only his with throaty and edgy vocals, but also with his overuse of “spoken word”, which you might know from Pantera’s “Good Friends And A Bottle Of Pills”. When hitting the higher notes he reminds me of Johnny Solinger (Skid Row’s replacement for Sebastian Bach). However, his vocals are delivered with ease and he brings a huge dose of credibility. The same can be said about the band, which doesn’t sound unique, but it most defiantly does sound honest.

So just crank it up and enjoy this piece of Texas.

thcofficial.com