Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 06/19/2007
The second album by those hard rocking sons of the Canadian prairie
One Bad Son sounds for all the world what
Guns N' Roses fans might hope
Chinese Democracy will sound like if and when it's ever finished. Lacking the grandiosity that sank the band's later albums, and toning down the
glam metal into a more low-key form of
hard rock in keeping with current fashion,
Orange City is simply a straightforward, meat and potatoes
hard rock album with little flash and less pretension, anchored by a singer who at times sound so much like
Axl Rose that surely that must be what singer
Shane Volk is going for. The Saskatoon quartet has a knack for grungy
boogie (
"Gringo"), leavened with occasional poppier tunes (
"Crooked Mic Stand," which features a killer guitar riff from
Adam Hicks that sounds like he's shooting for his own
"Sweet Child O' Mine") and stadium anthems (
"Sun Fire," the most lighter-ready tune here), and the album delivers good old-fashioned
rawk for the inner hesher of anyone sick of waiting for a return to the glory days of the late '80s, when hair spray and scarves were cool and
Nirvana hadn't ruined everything yet.
~Stewart Mason, All Music Guide