Review: Turbowolf - Turbowolf

 I've never really managed to give my self an opportunity to listen to Bristol rockers Turbowolf before but I've always sparked up a sense of interest whenever their name pops up in anything I read. It's probably down to the band name. I mean, come on... Turbowolf. A band with a name like that is destined to be badass. Listening to their self-titled debut album, it's clear that the band manage to prove that this is very much the case.

 Yep. Badass. That's the simple way of describing it. Because the band play a fairly straightforward rock and roll style but still manage to make it sound so fresh and produce such sweeping hooks just makes Turbowolf sound so damn cool! As the guitar feedback heard at the beginning of the album which builds into the albums introduction, it's clear that this album is going to be a blistering hard rock album with callbacks to the group's 1970s hard rock predecessors. This continues in Ancient Snake, Seven Severed Heads and Bag O' Bones, all of which pack a massive classic-heavy-metal-injected punch to readers, all tracks remaining fantastically catchy and gripping as Andy Ghosh's furious riffing and Chris Georgiadas' vocals both contain a punk-injected energy.
 Throughout the album various different music styles and group influences start to become more noticeable and shows a wide range of inspiration that the Turbowolf boys took with the making of this album. Read + Write contains a feel of emo crafted melancholy with extra synthesizer elements thrown in for good measure. The Big Cut then presents listeners with a grunge-fueled angst as well as skillfully crafted breakdowns, allowing for supreme moshing to take place whilst listening. Listening to the album I found many parts that seemed reminiscent to a wide range of predecessors. A Rose for the Crows with it's bouncy structures and metallic pounding wouldn't sound out of place on System of a Down's Toxicity, whilst the following track Son (Sun) sounds like a more depressed Red Hot Chili Peppers. While All the Trees has the main body of an emo inspired song, in the middle we are treated to some stoner rock riffing that the Truckfighters ("Probably the Best Band in the World") would be proud of. Out of these styles, due to the constant sense of anger, melancholy and angst contained in many songs, it is this heavy emo styling that dominates on this album. Combining this to classic sounding hard rock gives Turbowolf similar qualities to fellow rising brit stars Arcane Roots who managed to stun many with their fiery debut Left Fire in February.
 So Turbowolf's debut album essentially proves their music to be as awesome as their band name, as they cover a wide range of rock styles without losing any sense of focus or direction. It shows their is a real wildness and bright spark of uniqueness rising from the British rock scene. Turbowolf have clearly been taught well and hopefully will go on to prosper and become influential themselves. Seriously, more bands need to be like this.

 Turbowolf's self-titled debut is out now via Hassle Records. The band will perform at The Forum, Hatfield with The King Blues, The Skints, Hawk Eyes and We Are the Ocean.