Sandness
Like an Addiction
Sleaszy Rider Records
2013
“Like an Addiction” is the first album by italian hard rock/sleaze metal band Sandness. 1 or 2 minutes after I pushed play I had to check the date the album was released. Let’s just say that if it had come out in 1985 it may have been a good record.
While there is nothing wrong with the album there is nothing great about it either. It’s sounds like 3 dumb and immature young boys in their early 20’s who sing about partying, drinking and having sex. The problem is that it is pretty evident that these 3 young boys have done none of those things well enough or long enough to be in the position to write a decent song about them. It seems to me that if you have heard any album by Poison, Mötley Crüe, Whitesnake, Quite Riot, Winger or L.A. Guns (Sandness actually opened a gig for them in 2011), you have heard what Sandness were trying to play but never actually managed to play.
While there is nothing wrong with the album there is nothing great about it either. It’s sounds like 3 dumb and immature young boys in their early 20’s who sing about partying, drinking and having sex. The problem is that it is pretty evident that these 3 young boys have done none of those things well enough or long enough to be in the position to write a decent song about them. It seems to me that if you have heard any album by Poison, Mötley Crüe, Whitesnake, Quite Riot, Winger or L.A. Guns (Sandness actually opened a gig for them in 2011), you have heard what Sandness were trying to play but never actually managed to play.
There is only one good aspect in “Like an Addiction”: it is extremely fun-loving, light-hearted and at some points it’s almost fun. But apart from that, as hard as I tried I did not find anything original in the whole album. “Like an Addiction” is filled with cliche 80s sounding guitar riffs and solos, high-pitched screams that were aimed to sound like Rob Halfold but they so don’t (like in the chorus of “Drinkin’ Wine Under The Bridge”) and some of the most uninspired lyrics I have ever heard (like “Artificial Lover”: “Hello my darling/You are so sexy tonight/... You’re like a blow of cocain/You’re like heroin...”) not to mention the grammatical and syntactical problems.
There is a reason glam/sleaze metal and hair metal died (some say it was killed by grunge) after the 80s. Of course, I don’t mean that all those bands I mentioned before did not contribute to rock history or we should forget them for ever. What I mean is that I find absolutely no point in duplicating their work to the last chord. If you can channel 80s glam/sleaze metal is such a way in order to make it interesting and relevant today, good for you, you have achieved something. To my ears, “Like an Addiction” did not manage to do any of that.