THE SHITHEADZ – Dirty Pounding Gasoline

After some years with changes in their line-up and musical direction, German natives, The Shitheadz, have definitely landed on rock-metal rich in tradition.

Dirty Pounding Gasoline is the band’s first long play release, and I won’t be surprised if it’s not their last. Not that I, after listening to their album for some days, can refer to any specific tracks that stand out from the album and demand a sequel. As a whole, however, Dirty Pounding Gasoline provides you with an overall attitude that will engage you as a listener. You get a whole lot of well-played and highly energetic metal with a straight forward rock & roll twist.

Christoph Birx on vocals sounds like something in between Sebastian Bach and Johnny Solinger (past and present Skid Row singers) … quite an enjoyable listening experience. Guitarists Guido Reuss and Andreas Peters throw in a heavy and edgy riff every now and a then, and make the album rock solid.

The sound is very up-to-date, even though you can spot a lot of references to both the seventies, eighties and nineties. Some of the guitar work brings your mind back to slow Sabbath-ish stuff, while other parts are much more plain and fast-forward rock in the tradition of D.A.D. Some of Dirty Pounding Gasoline’s content reminds me of fellow newly debuting Dirty Americans, while more confusing parts (e.g., tracks like “Unspoken”) sound a bit too close to Nickelback to fit the rest of the material.

Highlights are the strongly seventies inspired hard rocking “Nitro”, the more straight metal oriented “Return Of The Demons”, the dirty pounding title track, and the fast rocking and rolling “The Seven”. Check it out!