German rockers PLATONIC SOLIDS were founded in 2008 and although they have been going for nine years, "Shady Deals" is their first full length album.  It follows on the heels of the 2012 EP, "Evil Seeds". With ten tracks to its name, "Shady Deals" kicks off with a neat little intro, just under two minutes long featuring some nice piano work.  It's all very dramatic and sets the scene for the first proper track, "Getting' Back Home"; this song started off in a promising fashion with some brutal double bass drum action and a wall of guitar.  It didn't follow through and deliver quite what I was expecting, but nonetheless it's a marvelous effort for an opener. Next up is "Hit The Lord", a perfectly passable chunk of rock featuring a sweet solo, but it's not my favourite track.  However, "Better Believe" showed more promise, a bouncy song that gets you nodding along with it.  "Fever" is, in my humble opinion, one of the more stand out tracks; with an industrial feel and bags of attitude, this is the sort of song that will do well in rock clubs throughout the land.  It made me want to jump around a bit and that's rare these days.

An infectious drum beat and a raunchy little guitar solo introduces "King Of Hearts", another belter of a song that marches along in a fairly insolent manner, but by this point, I was finding the songs a little bit samey, especially with "Shotgun Barrel" following. "Left In Darkness" is yet more of the same, but closing title track, "Shady Deals" redeems things somewhat; it's a big, bold track that smacks you upside the head and demands you pay it proper attention. Overall, this isn't a bad album; there are some elements of repetition that mean some of the songs might be a little less memorable than others, but overall, for a first full length effort, it's okay.  It's fairly consistent and it chugs along quite nicely whilst sounding quite industrial in some parts.