Sunday, January 26, 2014

The Tony Montanas "Mafiabilly"

(Crazy Love Records 2012)

Mafiabilly
Six Feet Below
Dressed To Kill
Revenge Is Sweet
Phantom Voices
Brothers In Crime
Fick Dein Leben Crew
Judgement Day
Multiband Radio
Someone’s Gonna Die Tonight
Cop Killer
Family
Sangue Chiama Sangue
No One Rides For Free
Bleed Me A Song
Brucia La Terra (unlisted bonus song)

Since their last outing on disc the Montanas have had a bit of a reshuffle. Lead vocalist and drummer Lil Big is gone and replacing him on lead vocals and drums respectively are Blue Eyes Montana (stepping up to the mic from his erstwhile guitar-playing only days…and now a multi tasker) and Tony Gazoline is in the drum seat. Tall Tony still wields his oversized violin case…and with that mafia-related anecdote out of the way and the warm feeling I have inside having updated you on the comings and goings within the band it’s on with the review!

When a band changes frontman it can be a detrimental move for all involved. Usually the vocalist gives a band’s sound that instant stamp of recognition. Without that vital component a band might as well just break up altogether and form something new from the ashes. Was it detrimental to the Tony Montanas? Not to my ears. Au contraire! It was beneficial. Musically they sound like the Montanas of old but vocally they’ve improved tenfold. Lil Big was a good singer; Blue Eyes Montana is a great singer. Though the two boys may be similar in style (no growling…just their natural singing voices…always a plus in my book), Blue Eyes definitely has the edge on his predecessor. I love this album. It’s as simple as that. It’s a pristine concoction of reverb-laden psycho-rockabilly with punk rock attitude (evident in the chanted backing vocals). If rockabilly was indeed the original punk rock, then THIS is what it should have sounded like. 
 
The O'Prez 2012
 


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