Drunken Rollers - Boogie Generation

The Drunken Rollers are an Italian quartet that’s loose enough but cool enough at the same time, to rock out, without sounding pretentious and with a singer who’s not as Italian as pasta, because with a lot of his compatriots you can tell about their origins within the first couple of lines, something that usually isn’t meant to be taken as a compliment, especially when the accent becomes annoying and the lyrics unintelligible. No such problem here and there’s even enough attitude and bravado in Lorenzo’s performances to actually make the band’s loose Rockin Boogie workouts that take ZZ Tops style and rock it up considerable, quite a bit of authority and dare I say authenticity.
 
“Boogie Generation” is their debut following an EP some four years earlier called “Chicken Run”… it’s riddled with phat ass twangy riffs, reeks of tobacco, whiskey and BBQ and has a bunch of great songs on it, like the infectious “Driver’s License”, the rockin’ “Rolling Down the Highway”, which some Southern bands would sell their cowboys hats to have written! The smoother and herm balladic instrumental “Ballad of the Lone Rider”, the hard hittin “Boogie Generation” and the heavy and cool as hell, “Climbing the Mountain” that a lot of the nu-breed stoners should give a listen to… it manages to sit cooly between old ZZ Top and Whitesnake, with hints of Mountain thrown in for good measure. Last but not least, is the idiosyncratic “I’ll be There” that feels like two separate songs merged into one a spunky and fast one and then a heady slow-jam one which the first one segues into seamlessly. Interesting to say the least.
 
These guys and these songs, sure, I’ll give high praise to. Every last damn miserable f#$#er that decided to take a trip to the studio and lay down a lazy jam, #$#% no. If you like 70s rock and the specific sound that ZZ Top made popular, this will be right down your alley or should I say highway…