REVIEW: Rival Sons – Great Western Valkyrie (2014)

A Christmas gift from the great DEKE!  This one made his Top Five of 2014 list (at #3) and came highly recommended.  Let’s do this!

RIVAL SONS – Great Western Valkyrie (2014 Earache)

From Long Beach, California, here are the Rival Sons!  They have come to save hard rock.  Gene Simmons is a fan, so let’s check ‘em out.  Great Western Valkyrie is their fourth album, but until last year I’d never heard of them.

Rival Sons are groove.  They are old fashioned.  I hear early influences from as far and wide as Sammy Hagar and soul rock.  “Electric Man” exemplifies this.  If the guitar player were the flashy type, you could mistake this for a new Chickenfoot composition.  Radio loves this kind of song right now.  It has vibes of the Trews and Royal Blood; the groove of bands like Death From Above 1969 but with a bluesy singing voice.  They apply a distortion and reverb to the lead vocal, which does sound cool but strikes me as a bit gimmicky.

I found the second track, “Good Luck” to be a bit dull.  Rival Sons seem to have psychedelic rock influences too, which isn’t really my bag, baby.  “Secret” features singing Jay Buchanan doing his best Robert Plant blues voice, and it’s another ferociously grooving track.  The riff is similar to “High Time” by Leadfoot, and the groove recalls “How Many More Times” from Led Zeppelin I.  “Let me tell you a secret, and I know you’re gonna keep it!” screams Buchanan over a killer bass groove.  Then “Play the Fool” utilizes a simple, stop-and-start rock riff, and a wicked time change.  “Good Things” has a dusky nightclub feel.  This is the song on which I’ll step out and take a pee.  It’s still playing when I get back, because it’s almost six minutes long.

Track 6 is “When the Levee Breaks”…Err, I mean the single “Open My Eyes”.  Sounds suspiciously like Zeppelin there.  You may have heard this one on the radio (I have).  It’s a great track, but undeniably based entirely upon Led Zeppelin.  The echo on the drums is lifted directly from Bonham and there are even acoustic breaks.  Back in the 1980’s there was a band called Kingdom Come that got raked over the coals for copping some Zep influences and milking it, but that’s nothing compared to “Open My Eyes”.  It’s a Zeppelin rip pure and simple!  That’s fine…enough time has passed that nobody cares anymore (plus Zeppelin ripped off everybody else).

“Rich and Poor” slows the pace, bringing us back to the psychedelic 60’s.  If the Doors had a different singer, maybe this is how they would sound.  I don’t particularly like the Doors, so onto the next one, “Belle Starr”. This song goes from fast to slow sections…just when I thought they were givin’ ‘er again, they slowed it down.  I’m just itching for some rock again.  Oh, there it goes!  This track is almost grungy, especially with that rolling bass underneath recalling Soundgarden.  I hear Rush influences too.  I’m not 100% sold on “Belle Starr”.  Not yet, anyway.  Led Zeppelin is all over “Where I’ve Been” too, in an epic quality.  Finally “Destination on Course” closes the album on a distinctly bluesy note.  Singer Buchanan really blows the doors off, and the angelic backing vocals have me forgetting that “LZ” band for a change.  The bluesy guitar solo is icing on the cake — just awesome.  On a track like this, Rival Sons establish their own sound.

Great Western Valkyrie is an album I look forward to checking out more in the future.  I think it has potential.  I know there are bonus tracks on other editions, which I have not investigated.  If I end up liking the band enough, I will check them out.

3.5/5 stars