Blackout Money

The band's debut EP is chock full of energetic and infectious melodic guitar pop. Ryan's got a helluva voice that really makes these tunes cook. This is one kickass disc. If this EP is any indication of what this band is capable of, we can't wait to hear what they can do on a full-length album. Top pick. - Babysue

"I think of heavy riffs, lots of rock and roll, along with distortion, noise, and a wild stage presence." - Paul Reyes

"this dynamic duo creates full throttle rock n' roll songs which jump out of your speakers, spurring you to leap on your feet, and, alternately, construct fluid and textured, delicate compositions, crafted with the same degree of passion and drive." - Roxanne Blanford

"The Noise's set was a lesson in hard-rocking minimalism...they sound like a stripped-down, punked-up version of Led Zeppelin." - Tom Pizzola

"Chris Ryan is a man who succesfully fuses full-on hard rock with melody and a songwriter's sensibility." - Janelle Jones

"Chris Ryan and The Noise offer a heavy, lean energy that falls somewhere between the arena and the garage." - Hutchinson

"C'mon feel the noise, again, at Holy Chow. Tonight, it's a stripped-down, just the facts ma'am type of noise...the guitar and drums only set-up of Chris Ryan and The Noise doesn't leave a lot of room for extracurricular things, and the Manhattan two piece will display only the essentials...Now that sounds just fine, doesn't it? - Ryan Muldoon

Singer/guitarist Christopher Ryan is a busy man, having written and produced music for film, TV, and theatre, while working alongside numerous Grammy-winning and high-profile artists (and releasing a solo EP in 2005, entitled Blackout Money). His well-connectedness has allowed him to elicit top-flight bandmates for this new project, including NY Dolls drummer Brian Delaney, Jellyfish/Beck keyboardist Roger Manning Jr., and Sheryl Crow guitarist Jeff Trott. Not surprisingly, this is huge-sounding, cleanly produced, radio-friendly guitar rock, with hard-hitting drums, big choruses, and rousing melodies. Only one song approaches mainstream mush, the sappy ballad “Put Your Love on the Table.” But the Sloan-like standout “Target For a Butterfly,” driving “Endless Summer,” and vivacious “Stay Tonight” are first-rate power-pop bashers that will have you salivating for a proper full length. (blackoutmoney.com)
- The Big Takeover

Three best hard-rock songs you can't hear on radio anywhere this year: Rick Springfield's cover of the Easybeats' "I'll Make You Happy," Billy Butcher's "Ghosts," and Chris Ryan's "East Coast Liner." The first would crush Velvet Revolver's "Slither" at white-trash rock FM if the game weren't rigged. "Ghosts" is Southern rock and honking blues from Canada—what Aerosmith should have published this year if not so spineless and craven. And the last—from Ryan's Blackout Money—gets up with any Mick Jones/Lou Gramm riffster on the first two Foreigner albums.

Ryan's drummer wrote me last summer, finding community in a gripe I'd made concerning hard-rock bands manned with school-of-stumblebum guitarists. He wanted to know what happened to all the good stuff. But Blackout Money, along with everything else ever sent along from Ryan & Co., ably collects those things that made fine, big-guitar arena rock years ago: one good singer-songwriter, arrangements that marry smashing riff with melody, and a drummer who knows how to hip-swivel as well as point the finger at the guitar man when it's time for climactic rock action.

So though Chris Ryan and his buds play dives in Manhattan, Blackout Money is made for drive-time airwaves: They go from hot-blooded, to R.E.O./T.W.O, to even a little something of Jackson Browne's "Redneck Friend." - Rocker's Double Vision Goes From One to Another Extreme

An early demo split the diff between Zeppy time signatures, maggot-brained cosmic slop, and solid workaday bloat, and Ryan’s new Blackout Money EP ranks with any local mainstream rock in years. His current live lineup swings so hard that, coupled with their unfashionably in-your-face frontman’s manly voice, they conjure visions of 1979 Bad Company, 1978 Elvis Costello, and 1976 ZZ Top all at once. - Chuck Eddy