The Answer
Raise a Little Hell
Napalm Records
2015
When The Answer first came – actually before they released their debut, I had seen them perform live and without being overtly exciting, I thought they had some potential, but I was uncertain if they had what it would take to propel them to the big league... turns out, I was half right-half wrong… the band did even go as far as to score a tour with AC/DC, but did fail monumentally to capitalize, on that. Almost always branded as the “new” Led Zeppelin or whatnot, the band failed to establish a deeply personal identity and as their songwriting is decent yet generic, not producing “hits”, but decent jams instead, they soon lost a lot of the momentum they had generated, as soon as the hype died down.
Truth be spoken, they have somewhat kicked, their Zeppelin-clone, character, with the only reason one could draw serious parallels to them probably being the way in which Cormac Neeson, their singer sings, a little recklessly, bringing to mind, Robert Plant’s, wild an free style… otherwise, it’s more bluesy and rocking, more akin to Free/Bad Company, but nowhere near as good , but if I were hard pressed to compare them with someone that would be The Quireboys and I’d find them lacking in that department too, since Spike and his wild rousing bunch of rebels, have been a lot more successful in penning good tunes... these Irish chaps are good, but they never wrote a song that really made me turn my head… a lot of other bands, had they ever gotten this level of exposure, would now have been huge. Instead, they have to rely on pledge music to release the album outside of Germany/Austria and the lower countries…
All I can hypothesize is that The Answer were caught in the hipsteria, of the moment and looked like a good band to follow for people who couldn’t bother with the passe old bands but needed something supposedly original to listen to. Apparently, none of the bands that came around the same time, managed to become the rock ‘n roll, saviors – magazines predicted them to be. The Darkness who in their extravagance, were a little different and off the wall, imploded after a couple of albums in a haze of booze and drugs, only to regroup much later, with the train departed and their attempts to recapture the public’s fancy, failing quite miserably without the backing of a multinational company behind them, The Answer managing very little over the course of a five album career so far, Wolfmother disappeared somewhere in their own singers ginger sideburns, who tried to make them a personal project, but having failed miserably, just reverted to a band format again and the more recognizable moniker, but who without the backing of a major company – electing the “solo-release” direction, seem destined to just disappear into the sunshine… Heck even Airbourne a band that completely ripped off, AC/DC and a few others and had Lemmy star in their videos, could not “ride” on those facts and really seemed to implode, with the release of their third album. Should a fourth one fail to do well, they might as well be written off…
The problem with all these bands is that unlike the bands they “copy/pay tribute/draw inspiration from”, they never came out with a series of unbroken, excellent albums, that transcended a generation so as to cement them as a “big deal”… at best some of them came up with a couple of good singles while others just seemed to be riding completely on hype. And it’s a bad thing when you believe in it and your own press...
The main problem I have with The Answer is that they are way too simplistic and even when they come up with a good idea, it’s not catchy enough to have any real staying power... the album begins with a bunch of half promising songs, like “The Other Side” that are good enough not to skip, but not good enough to lose your mind over…
“Cigarettes and Regret” completely rips off, the recent style of The Quireboys, to the point where, it’s suspect, but Spike and the boys do it a million times better.
Shit like “I Am What I Am” which falls in the same category, as most of the songs prior to it bases itself on a riff, AC/DC could sue over and just doesn’t have the same type of guts or swagger like the UK/Aussie legends... the first song that manages to somewhat impress is the more gutsy “Whiplash” which rolls another of those “per-ordained” riffs, with some melodic lines that brought to my mind, mid-era Mr Big, rocking out and a brassy one word chorus, that however works… it’s repeated however so many times, that it sort of gets a little too repetitive…
In all reality, the style, they try to follow, requires more guitars and stronger rhythmical ideas... The drumming of The Answer so stoned out simple, that a five year old could do most of it, without any prior instruction and that's problematical. They have a song called “Raise a Little Hell” that’s so slow and monotonous, that hell would actually freeze over, before anything happened…
And on top of 12 “normal” songs come half a dozen “bonuses”, 3 normal ones, which are from the same sessions, with “Flying” and “I Will Follow On” probably being better than a lot of the songs that ended up in the normal “album” sequence... at least they sound more lively...
There are also two acoustic takes on “The Other Side” and “Gone Too Long” which are way too sensitive and introspective sounding and an “unplugged” version of “Strange Kinda Nothing” with minimal percussion coming via some tambourine and some very basic drumbeat, actually sounding more appropriate than the electric version. For fanatics there’s even a 2 CD version with a live performance… but I’m not really sold on that.
If you liked The Answer you’ll still like them now, but in all reality, The Quireboys have this “market” covered and at least from a songwriting perspective sound a lot more original, doing it. The Answer without being bad, are just not able to make their mark, which after five albums will probably be their downfall. Much better bands like Glyder didn’t last, in the face of the apathy displayed by the public, when time and again they would come up with great albums to very small response, by a public that needs to be spoon fed “it’s heroes” and can’t tell real talent, but follows trends and the nostalgia wave... generated by bands that didn’t really give a f#ck about any of that, or what people on the internet thought, all those years ago.
Truth be spoken, they have somewhat kicked, their Zeppelin-clone, character, with the only reason one could draw serious parallels to them probably being the way in which Cormac Neeson, their singer sings, a little recklessly, bringing to mind, Robert Plant’s, wild an free style… otherwise, it’s more bluesy and rocking, more akin to Free/Bad Company, but nowhere near as good , but if I were hard pressed to compare them with someone that would be The Quireboys and I’d find them lacking in that department too, since Spike and his wild rousing bunch of rebels, have been a lot more successful in penning good tunes... these Irish chaps are good, but they never wrote a song that really made me turn my head… a lot of other bands, had they ever gotten this level of exposure, would now have been huge. Instead, they have to rely on pledge music to release the album outside of Germany/Austria and the lower countries…
All I can hypothesize is that The Answer were caught in the hipsteria, of the moment and looked like a good band to follow for people who couldn’t bother with the passe old bands but needed something supposedly original to listen to. Apparently, none of the bands that came around the same time, managed to become the rock ‘n roll, saviors – magazines predicted them to be. The Darkness who in their extravagance, were a little different and off the wall, imploded after a couple of albums in a haze of booze and drugs, only to regroup much later, with the train departed and their attempts to recapture the public’s fancy, failing quite miserably without the backing of a multinational company behind them, The Answer managing very little over the course of a five album career so far, Wolfmother disappeared somewhere in their own singers ginger sideburns, who tried to make them a personal project, but having failed miserably, just reverted to a band format again and the more recognizable moniker, but who without the backing of a major company – electing the “solo-release” direction, seem destined to just disappear into the sunshine… Heck even Airbourne a band that completely ripped off, AC/DC and a few others and had Lemmy star in their videos, could not “ride” on those facts and really seemed to implode, with the release of their third album. Should a fourth one fail to do well, they might as well be written off…
The problem with all these bands is that unlike the bands they “copy/pay tribute/draw inspiration from”, they never came out with a series of unbroken, excellent albums, that transcended a generation so as to cement them as a “big deal”… at best some of them came up with a couple of good singles while others just seemed to be riding completely on hype. And it’s a bad thing when you believe in it and your own press...
The main problem I have with The Answer is that they are way too simplistic and even when they come up with a good idea, it’s not catchy enough to have any real staying power... the album begins with a bunch of half promising songs, like “The Other Side” that are good enough not to skip, but not good enough to lose your mind over…
“Cigarettes and Regret” completely rips off, the recent style of The Quireboys, to the point where, it’s suspect, but Spike and the boys do it a million times better.
Shit like “I Am What I Am” which falls in the same category, as most of the songs prior to it bases itself on a riff, AC/DC could sue over and just doesn’t have the same type of guts or swagger like the UK/Aussie legends... the first song that manages to somewhat impress is the more gutsy “Whiplash” which rolls another of those “per-ordained” riffs, with some melodic lines that brought to my mind, mid-era Mr Big, rocking out and a brassy one word chorus, that however works… it’s repeated however so many times, that it sort of gets a little too repetitive…
In all reality, the style, they try to follow, requires more guitars and stronger rhythmical ideas... The drumming of The Answer so stoned out simple, that a five year old could do most of it, without any prior instruction and that's problematical. They have a song called “Raise a Little Hell” that’s so slow and monotonous, that hell would actually freeze over, before anything happened…
And on top of 12 “normal” songs come half a dozen “bonuses”, 3 normal ones, which are from the same sessions, with “Flying” and “I Will Follow On” probably being better than a lot of the songs that ended up in the normal “album” sequence... at least they sound more lively...
There are also two acoustic takes on “The Other Side” and “Gone Too Long” which are way too sensitive and introspective sounding and an “unplugged” version of “Strange Kinda Nothing” with minimal percussion coming via some tambourine and some very basic drumbeat, actually sounding more appropriate than the electric version. For fanatics there’s even a 2 CD version with a live performance… but I’m not really sold on that.
If you liked The Answer you’ll still like them now, but in all reality, The Quireboys have this “market” covered and at least from a songwriting perspective sound a lot more original, doing it. The Answer without being bad, are just not able to make their mark, which after five albums will probably be their downfall. Much better bands like Glyder didn’t last, in the face of the apathy displayed by the public, when time and again they would come up with great albums to very small response, by a public that needs to be spoon fed “it’s heroes” and can’t tell real talent, but follows trends and the nostalgia wave... generated by bands that didn’t really give a f#ck about any of that, or what people on the internet thought, all those years ago.