SIN DEALER – Dying To Live

While Dying To Live is the independent debut release from the four-man Sin Dealer, the members of the Toronto, Ontario, Canada band have plenty of experience in the music business, having performed with lots of other groups prior to forming Sin Dealer in 2005.

Dying To Live is 10 tracks long and has a playing time of close to 45 minutes, with one of the songs being a cover of the AC/DC classic “Walk All Over You.” The Sin Dealer lineup is as follows: Eric Kuthe, vocals; Ron Bechard, guitars; Frank Sergeant, bass; and Jeff Zurba, drums.

Sin Dealer is a very back-to-basics, no-frills Metal/Hard Rock band; they’re not flashy and their songs are uncomplicated and straightforward. Sin Dealer gets to the point right away on each and every tune on this album: workmanlike, in-your-face Rock, with lots of big riffs, big, gritty grooves, plenty of attitude, a fair amount of “adult” subject matter, and the gruff vocals of Kuthe, who sounds like he gargles with gravel each morning. The songs are all catchy, heavy chuggers that would sound good playing in a biker bar, and while none of them are particularly fast, most have good, energetic momentum to them.

Dying To Live isn’t an amazing album, but it’s a pretty good one, with a solid collection of songs, save for the last tack, the turgid “Devil’s War,” which drags on a little too long at nearly seven minutes and becomes kind of monotonous after a while. Better tunes on the album would be the title track, “Got Into You,” “Gasoline,” “Going Down,” and “One Foot In the Grave.” The cover of “Walk All Over You” is fairly routine, not really straying too far from the original. Still, it sounds respectable enough.

Fans of groove-infused Metal and Hard Rock should check out Sin Dealer’s Dying To Live: while it won’t change your life, it’s still a good listen.