Sick Of It All – ‘Wake The Sleeping Dragon’ (Century Media)

Sick Of It All – ‘Wake The Sleeping Dragon’ (Century Media)

Johnny Hayward.

Sick Of It All album reviews kind of write themselves these days with a large proportion of them either falling into the “this is no ‘Scratch The Surface’” or “it’s their best record in decades” camps, with journos being awarded extra special brownie points if they can actually manage to squeeze them both in. For yours truly it’s more of a case of how much of a battering I feel like I’ve had after each new record, because since the release of ‘Death To Tyrants’ back in 2006 I don’t think the band has put a foot wrong release wise.

That’s 12 years of almost non-stop musical perfection encompassing five studio albums, a 30th anniversary EP and God knows how many sweat soaked sold out shows worldwide. ‘Wake The Sleeping Dragon’ then (album number 5 of this winning streak and album number 12 overall from the band) is exactly what I have come to expect from Messrs Koller, Majidi and Setari, just 17 blasts of brutal hardcore at its very best.

You can try and dissect ‘Wake The Sleeping Dragon’ all you want but ultimately the Sick Of It All sound really is their trademark with no ballads, no jazz fusion interludes and not one of the songs breaking the 2 minutes and 40 seconds mark, so there’s also no “shock horror” clickbait headline to accompany this review. ‘Wake The Sleeping Dragon’ is simply the sound of the masters of the genre relishing every single second of their day job and in the process they deliver steamrolling anthems like ‘That Crazy White Boy Shit’, ‘Bad Hombres’ alongside the album’s incendiary title track, each one meticulously designed to make you lose your shirt and your mind in a frenzied mosh pit when the Sick Of It All guys come to a town near you very soon.

Having never been afraid to hold back when it comes to their lyrics, the pick of the bunch here is ‘Robert Moses Was A Racist’, a 1 minute 28 explosion of rage directed at the legacy of New York City’s “master builder” whilst in ‘Beef Between Vegans’ there is a timely nod towards the bigger discussion point of the moment, no not fucking Brexshit, but the world’s ever diminishing resources.

Short, sharp and always on point ‘Wake The Sleeping Dragon’ doesn’t so much as raise the bar for hardcore release worldwide as take a flamethrower to the bar and let the rest of the scene dance around the ashes Sick Of It All leave behind. I fucking love this album and I’m pretty sure you will too.

This is one release destined for the playlist at Daley’s Pumphouse gym that’s for sure.

Buy Wake The Sleeping Dragon Here

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That Was The Week That Was

That Was The Week That Was

Seven days in Rock and Roll can be a long time or if you like us then it’ll fly by.  With some exclusive interviews and a whole lot of records reviewed we hope we’ve at least shone a little light into a corner of the entertainment world we think houses the best of the best and having the likes of Rich Jones give an interview with some snippets about the new Michael Monroe album revealed ‘One Man Gang’ is now out of the bag and having the likes of Nasty Suicide and Captain Sensible playing on the record 2019 is shaping up nicely or as someone here at HQ said “that’s album of the year sorted for 2019”.

We also brought you Paul Collins interview who is the self declared king of power pop although I did get a call in to HQ saying that wasn’t quite true as Rags now holds that title but I’m not getting involved in that debate but we did announce that Rich Ragany is holding an album launch in London Town in January and the line up is a very impressive set of bands that shouldn’t be missed details can be found on RPM online News section.

There were live reviews from Japanese Garage legends King Brothers as well as acoustic platinum seller Eric Martin and on Friday we brought you a review of The Feelgood Band playing in London which rounded up a pretty diverse bunch from around the globe I’m sure you’ll agree?

For our bread and butter album reviews, we had some old new um very old and one turkey so a festive collection of records were covered by a crack team of scribes.  We previewed Black Friday RSD must own – Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers ‘DTK’ as well as newcomers Estrons that went down extremely well here.  We took a trip to New York for Palmyra Delran and her doppelgangers and whilst we were there Beechwood were heading out the door to Europe for a tour but left us their new long player which is also an impressive second album this year from the three-piece.  The Turkey well we couldn’t sit Idol let Billy off without mentioning his revisited best-of collection that has been given the dance remix treatment which could have worked but cutting edge it isn’t.  90’s dated Ibiza dance off it might have been but disappointing is what it is and we can only bring you the truth here at RPM even though we love William Broad we’re excited for Generation Sex but not his new collection of remixes. There were the likes of the excellent Bitterlicks and Dave Kusworth records reviewed before they hit the shops as well as Thomas Silvers much anticipated solo album.

 

Not wanting to finish on a downer we look forward to the coming week where you have to keep it RPM online because we’re bringing you The Hip Priests and He Who Cannot Be Named live and where else are you getting that and Junkyard bookending Cowboy Junkies?  Nowhere that’s where. Also, we have albums from Honest John Plain, Australians Civic, New York Sick OF It All and Europeans like Youth Avoiders and Fertile Hump.  So remember to keep it RPM online and as Lux would say Stay Sick.