Review: Black Spiders - Volume

 This year, my four favourite British newcomer rock acts would have to be Black Spiders, Arcane Root, The James Cleaver Quintet and Turbowolf. For this review it would be very convenient for me to call Doncaster's Sons of the North my favourite of the four, but that would be lying. They came a close third after Turbowolf and the JCQ. However, that's no kind of underestimation to how good the band are at all. Their February debut was a mind-blowing hard hitting collection of traditional heavy metal with some stoner rock elements thrown in for good measure. And now, so popular is the demand for the band to make their earlier material more available across the globe, that the material from their debut EPs and single for St. Peter have been collected together on Volume.

 Volume is my first chance to listen to these earlier recordings from the band and the opener being the single version of the album track St. Peter is a perfect example of the band when they let the stoner roots take flight. It's sinister, the riffs are dwindling and overwhelmingly powerful and the solo sees more extreme action kicking into place. Yeah it's all epic.

 A lot of tracks on this album keep the characteristics of stoner rock in place but add a greater sense of adrenaline and pace to a lot of their songs. If we look at it in terms of what I recently decided to be my favourite album Kyuss' Blues For the Red Sun basically most of Black Spiders' songs are more like Green Machine in their style rather than... Thong Song. I hope that meant something to anyone reading this. I don't think I've ever met anyone who hasn't looked confused and blank whenever I've mentioned the almighty Kyuss.

Anyway, Cold Dead Hands is a good example of this paced up stoner rock.

 It's not just that though. There's a influence to various classic rock acts, with D & B sounding like The Rolling Stones playing heavy metal and Jitterbug and I'll Be the Judge playing with the hard rock fury of The Wildhearts and of course there's Kicked In the Teeth which is Led Zeppelin's Black Dog, only evil. Of course ll whilst containing the spirit of classic heavy metal spirit of Black Sabbath and AC/DC.

 The group also carries an incredible sens of slickness about them which lakes them even cooler. It's best demonstrated in Just Like a Woman and their cover of Motörhead's No Class which isn't quite as good as the original but hey, they make it their own.

 Essentially, Volume is a perfect display of what makes Black Spiders so great as a band and proves that this band haven't had a single low moment in their career which has just blown up this year. I'd strongly recommend this along with Sons of the North and find yourself immersed in a band who are likely to become future legends of hard rock.