Artist: Zen Motel 
   Title: Stations Of The Dead
   Label: Imprint Records

Hailing from the ashes of Brit rockers Johnny Zhivago bassist Lee Wray has taken the hard edged side of Zhivago and turned it into Zen Motel, together with Alex Green and Si Fricker on guitars, and fellow ex. Zhivago Neil Roberts on drums, they have set themselves a mission to convert the young rockers of the world to turn back the clock, throw away the Emo downtrodden approach to music and put the ROCK back into their lives.

'Stations Of The Dead' is pure gold old school rock n' roll with screaming guitars and fun time lyrics that take a shot at life in general.

The album opens up with ‘Head’ and instantly the band show their colours with their no holds barred approach to rock n' roll.  With twin guitars scything through the track, this is good time rock as it was meant to be.

Anyone familiar with Johnny Zhivago will recognise the next track ‘21^st Century Bitch’ as the band bring one of my favourite tracks from the Zhivago days bang up to date, only this time it has a little more edge and bite than the original, all good stuff.

The band now take a stab at the Chav culture that is seemingly taking over this country with ‘Dress Code Violence’.  This band is all about the head on, full tilt rock n' roll and the delivery of this track is a prime example of this approach.

The good times just keeps coming as the album continues with the aptly titles ‘Real Good Time’ and the equally rocking ‘Howl’.  Wray gives way on the vocals as Green takes over for the punky ‘So Selfish Too’, then it's back to Wray for the vocals on the more sedate tones of ‘Drugstar’.

It's soon back to the hard edged rock with a scorching cover of Adam Bomb’s ‘Pissed’ and I must say this a far more superior version of the song than Bomb's ever managed.  The band really make it their own with Green and Fricker twin guitars fuelling the song and giving it that little bit extra bite that it's been begging for all this time.

The band keep the tempo going with ‘What You’re On’, another loaded gun full of on rock n' roll which continues the pace with the hard hitting ‘Last Night Of The English Pig’, a song that takes a hearty stab at England and its inherent culture.

Things take a definite futuristic tone with the haunting ‘Honey Ryder’ (who if anyone doesn't already know was the character Ursula Andres played in Dr. No) and even includes snippets from the movie to add to the overall ambiance of the track.

The album is brought to a close with the hard-edged ‘Trackside Pussy’ and as with 'Honey Ryder' the band add a little film nostalgia with exerts from ‘Death Race 2000’, all of which round off a great album that will have the purists of you baying for more.

All content copyright of The Mayfair Mall Zine unless otherwise stated.