First off, how the fuck does one pronounce the band’s name? “Quote-Demons-Unquote?” I can’t figure out if it’s genius in our time, or mere idiocy on a grand scale, like when Social Distortion always used to write out their name with quotation marks AND a hyphen before they could afford to have people write it out for them. My computer says that, alphabetically, “Demons” comes before both ? and the Mysterians and the 101ers (to say nothing of the A’s), thus i suppose the kronas would roll right in if more record stores had a “ section, but ALL TYPOGRAPHICAL MYSTERY PROTOCOLS ASIDE, i’ll go on record as saying that i’m not quite floored, not quite bored with this Scandinavian Rock Posse. Were i to describe their sound as i find fit, i’d say they sounded like the Nomads playing New Bomb Turks covers (their singer actually sounds like he learned English phonetically from Eric Davidson, therefore “dead” become “DAY-id,” “degeneration” become “dee-gen-uh-RAY-shawwwn”...synthetic good ol’ boy Americanese at its finest!). Were i to describe their sound not using any other bands in the description, i’d say “punked up heavy guitar rock.” Were i to describe the band using no sonic references whatsoever, i’d say “the kind of a band whose album cover has red letters on a black background, plus a belt buckle.” I dunno. I never really trust bands like these, because i’m never certain that they’re not the second coming of the Cult, or that they don’t secretly like Guns’n’Roses, or that they don’t PUBLICLY like Guns’n’Roses, or any of a million other Crimes Against The Me. That said, i have no specific complaints against this band/record – I mean, it’s LOUD, it’s ROCK, it has MASS and IMPACT and VOLUME – it’s a big ol’ ROCK TORRENT – but, at the same time, it’s a POLISHED and STATIC rock torrent, a rock torrent that just kinda sits there being, uh...torrential? It’s just kinda THERE. It’s a LOUD just kinda there, but, all the same, it’s still just kinda THERE – a big loud neutral background against which little bits of sonic frippery – a maraca or a vibroslap here, a sax or piano there – become the only parts of the song that are legitimately interest-grabbing (although i will say that the bass had a nice Dukowski-esqueness in spots). Other than that i like it fine. P.S. Less Iron Crosses, more Maltese Crosses. BEST SONG TITLE: “Gang Green Eyes” BEST SONG: “Degeneration Hotel” FANTASTIC AMAZING TRIVIA FACT: 1. A member of this band has a WHITE LEATHER JACKET (but has far less chevrons than i); 2. “Gang Green” was the nickname of the Green Bay Packers’ front four in the late ‘70s. I once wrote a song about one of them (“Do the Dave Roller”) but our guitar player refused to play it.
–norb (Gearhead)