Album review : HELL IN THE CLUB – F.U.B.A.R.

Frontiers [Release date: 11.08.23]

This outstandingly good Rock / Metal band have everything going for them except their band name and their album art. Neither of which do them any favours.

Just as well the music is so good.

Constructed around vocalist Davide (Elvenking) Moras and guitarist, Andrea (Secret Sphere) Buratto, this underrated and insufficiently publicised band have been knocking out quality material for six albums now.

Maybe it’s because many of their songs are shrinking violets that only blossom vigorously after repeated plays.

That happens a lot here.

And yet every song is skilfully mapped out and carefully created, and like many bands over the years…Motley Crue / Backyard Babies / Crash Diet… they’re heavily influenced by the flashy, trashy aesthetic of seventies Glamrock, making ‘Sidonie’, ‘Total Disaster’ and ‘Sleepless’ probably the most immediate, accessible tracks on the album.

‘The End Of All’ and ‘Tainted Sky’ go a step further, mimicking the sleazy garage rock of Alice Cooper c. Killer.

But it’s the material that provides the band with unique identity that will impress you the most, from the full blown, slow motion, scenery chewing hard rock of ‘Arrival’, to the ‘The Kid’, an outstanding genre piece that fuses a thunderbolt of Viking Metal to driving hard rock.

‘Cimitero Vivente’ (Pet Cemetary) “looking for a new life underground”, is the one that marks them out as being truly different. The sleek, streamlined, hard rock guitars we’ve become familiar with fade into the background a little, with Moras’s paint stripping vocals doing all the hard work, grabbing us in its suitably eerie embrace.

As for F.U.B.A.R, maybe they’re being a bit hard on themselves. ****

Review by Brian McGowan

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Power Plays w/c 9 December 2024

In this sequence we play ‘The Best of 2024′ GRTR! reviewer selections

Featured Albums w/c 9 December 2024

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2024 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2024 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2024 (Singer Songwriter)