THE ILLUMINATI – On Borrowed Time

Have you noticed what’s wrong with Metal these days? It is dominated by guys who expand the genre into esoteric spheres that put you to sleep faster than any pill; or they slow it down until a tune lingers for an hour, and the drummer is only heard thrice on the whole album; or they play two thousand notes a minute and make your head buzz; or the main musician is the keyboardist, and you feel like bloody Britney has taken over your favorite music; or they sound like an express train through your brain with a singer who clearly died a decade ago.

With a mumbled curse thrown at the world in general and music in particular, you turn away from the CD player like you did so many times, only this time something is different … wait … there is a CD case on the floor that you did not see before. This place has gone to shit anyway, so why not slip the disc in and see how much more miserable it can get?

Thirty seconds later the room spins, the floor moves sideways, and your feet belong to some otherworld entity, which beamed down from planet Rock. You call your friends to come (don’t forget the beer), you shoot a can down your throat and then waste the place dancing, because Rock ‘n’ Roll has finally resurrected. Thrilling riffing and a smoke-and-beer laden voice gallop through an array of under three minute Retro-Rock frontal assaults, and whenever they show a sign of fatigue, they’re driven on by heavy drumming like the stallion is forced forward by the knout of the jockey.

When your friends appear, you have the best Metal Rock party in years, shouting choruses, stampeding through your flat, annoying the old lady next door and the landlord’s cat, turning it up to blend out the shouts of the neighbors, bloodying your nose tripping over empty beer cans and starting this 37-minute revelation over and over again.

Because this is the Classic Rock band in the suburban garage that never had a chance to get anywhere; this is the Rockabilly outfit in Texas performing for pissed cowboys who try to peek up the waitresses’ skirts while the guys play their butts off; this is pure Hard Boogie that has not been played sincerely since the seventies; this is Molly Hatchet in a one night stand with Status Quo; this is Punk ‘n’ Roll, the type that makes the ceiling drip with sweat and reeks of alcohol and dirty underwear; this is the type of music that magically is always cranked up to eleven; this is Stoner Rock dryer than the desert and more fucked up than the howling Coyote you try to shut up with a well-aimed empty bottle; this is gasoline in your bloodstream and the asphalt under your wheels; this is the hot chick dressed in leather in a small club and the chance for getting laid in the backstage room; this is the Devil Dogs lying with Black Sabbath, Sheavy doing it in the back alley with Motörhead; this is the bullet fired from an over enthusiastic farmhand that hits the amplifier and sends painful feedbacks through your auditory canals; this is the night before the morning after, this is pure R-O-C-K.