Black Label

Well I saw AC/DC at the Entertainment Centre and not long after hearing Black Label's new album, The Dealer I had flashbacks that made me blush. I can't believe my own ears but dammit if Black Label haven't captured the true essence of rock'n'roll in all its glory. Featuring ex-members of the Oz Deep Purple Show, the Stones Experience and the Storm AC/DC Show, its all here - long hair, dirty blues, big riffs, and other things. And the lyrics. Gratefully printed in the CD sleeve. For example: "Baby let's go to a joint downtown/ be some rockin' and the band is playin' loud/ don't hesitate just take my hand/ I'm goin' to take you to the promised land". Ahh, the promised land. Where any self-respecting naughty but nice woman wants to go. Black Label have the balls, the gusto, the sheer focused intensity to take you there too. On Mamma Said, we feel the lead singer's universal distress with the lyrics: "Well you've come to a point where you're down on your luck/ and somethin's got a grip on your soul/ but nothin' you do seems to work out right/ the world's spun out of control".

I hear you man.

Apparently Oz Bike magazine "saw 'em rip it up at the Bankstown Show and would highly recommend them to anyone booking talent for bike shows". Do you need more? The lead guitarist is called Fozz and they have song titles that make you feel the song before you hear it: Midnight Ramblin', Bad Influence and Motorcycle Rider being three excellent examples. Just beautiful old school rock from the outer suburbs to stir the emotions and raise the blood pressure to alarming highs.
- Revolver May 7th 2001 writer GAVIN KING

's a long time since anyone in Australia cut an album like The Dealer. There have been the odd ones here and there recalling this style of "good ol' boy Southern US of A fried rock", from stalwarts like Peter Wells, but Black Label, if you'll excuse the pun, are the real deal in that department. right from the opening track, Snake In The Grass, these guys hit the floor with all guns blazing, James Carvin's slide ripping out the riffs before the band settles into a solid boogie over which Steve Mulry's (yes, there's a connection to that other Mulry, and there's something of a similarity in the vocal tones too, naturally) punchy vocals, and things pretty much stay that way throughout the album.

Now when I said Southern rock, it's not pure Lynyrd Skynyrd, whom the boys tribute with the track Southlands. There's plenty of blues edge there, though it's Johnny Winter rather than Stevie Ray, so it's far more raw, open and honest, blues from the gut. There's straight ahead boogie like Good Luck, Good Times, which owes as much to Status Quo (when they mattered, and really could rock) as anything from, say, Foghat or even Rose Tattoo (I can just hear Angry getting his teeth into Motorcycle Rider).

And there are plenty of twin lead lines that recall Thin Lizzy at their finest - check out some of the lines on Tell Me Something New, Bad Influence or Down Hill Road in particular, just for starters - so it's quite a respectable rock'n'roll pedigree we're talking here, though it's a pedigree that bespeaks of the glory days of '70s blues-rock rather than today's version.

And Black Label have no reason to feel the less for wearing their allegiance on their collective leather-clad sleeve. Just turn up the volume and go with it.

MICHAEL SMITH
- THE DRUM MEDIA-May 15th 2001