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'Hellroad
Caravan' is the fourth release from Finnish rockers Mannhai and with this
new line-up comes with a new front man in the form of former Amorphis
singer Pasi Koskinen, who joined the band half way through their European
tour in 2005 after the band had to let their former vocalist go.
After only a few months of working together they decided to make this a
permanent arrangement.
The band have
taken Koskinen’s harder vocal style on board and built the new album
around that sound to bring a heavier Mannhai sound.
The album gets
off to a fantastic start with ‘Shellshock’, a bass thumping track that is
very reminiscent of the early Sabbath sound. This is followed up
with ‘Fuzzmaster’, which has a slightly slower pace than the previous
song.
After that the
album continues with ‘Spaceball’, which was the first single to be taken
off the album and a song that went all the way to No.1 in the Finnish
charts, staying there a total of 3 weeks. The track itself is quite
an up tempo little number that simply bounces along with an infectious
groove.
The band delve
into the darker side of their psyche for ‘Dambuster’ and ‘Better Hate
Yesterday', two similar songs that are built around a very heavy bass
sound.
The heavy bass
is obviously a very integral part of the whole Mannhai sound as it
continues on into ‘Back In Red’ and the excellent ‘Mojo Runner’, a prelude
to the up tempo beats of ‘Overdaze’ and my favourite track off the album
‘Rock In A Cradle (Detroit)’, a song that takes it's bass lines directly
out of Kiss’s ‘Detroit Rock City’.
The band once
again return to the darker side of their sound on ‘Hall Of The Dead’, a
very sombre song indeed. Finally the album closes with ‘Downer’
which is another great song once again full of those heavy bass lines,
only this time mingled with a touch of soaring guitar from Ile Laaksomaa.
This all goes to round off a very good album and one that will make its
mark not only in their native Finland, but the rest of Europe. |
