Helldorado - Director's Cut

by Geraint Jones

published: 19 / 11 / 2004

Label: Glitterhouse Records
Format: CD

Fiery and intense garage rock on new album from Norwegian act Helldorado, which proves to be "never less than an enthralling, blood red Technicolor wide-screen experience"

Review

As befits the title, there does seem to be a narrative thread running throughout ‘Director’s Cut’ and Helldorado tell it with some gusto. Perhaps it’s all those long days and long nights in Norway – hopefully this is their winter album – for ‘Director’s Cut’ is awash with dark and foreboding tales, both fiery and intense in their delivery. Bad women, bad alcohol, murder, mayhem and lycanthropy make for bewitching subject matter. Lead singer Dag S. Vagle conveys the required desperation with a fervent holler, variously recalling Jeffrey Lee Pierce, David Eugene Edwards and Louis Tillett. The rest of the band, augmented by a slew of guests brew up a storm throughout – ‘Director’s Cut’ is never less than an enthralling, blood red Technicolor wide-screen experience. Strings, some of the finest twanging heard since Duane Eddy, some genuinely hell-bound garage rock and not a little melodrama all add up to a thrilling set. ‘Teenage Queen’ in particular, which is one of the most exciting and visceral tracks of the year not least due to its compulsively effervescent bass line. And lest it be said that the band may be taking all this a little too seriously, semi-hidden closing cut ‘Surfin’ Transylvania’ – as good as the title suggests – proves they’ve got a sense of humour too.

Track Listing:-

1 Blood Shack
2 Lucy and Mary
3 Payrolled
4 Diesel and Bones
5 The Snake Girl Song
6 Dead River
7 I'd Waited for This Day
8 Killer on the Highway
9 Teenage Queen
10 Woman Shouldn't Drink
11 Roadhouse