If there's one country which can give the Swedes a run for their money when it comes to great European Rock or Metal, it's Finland; this year I have heard a few great Finnish releases and also the same happened last year. I don't know what it is about the Finns, or their rivals the Swedes, but the number of great artists they have produced consistently with very rare faults here and there is actually quite astounding. That's not to say that other European countries can't do it too as they can but Finland and Sweden seem to have a high consistency rate when it comes to great Rock or Metal music.

Anyway, onto today's review and the offering I have been given this time is from a new Finnish Hard Rock quarter who go by the name of HARD ACTION and their recently released debut "Sinister Vibes" is the subject of this review. Naturally being a new band, info on them is very scarce and hard to find so I'll skip straight to the review of the album instead to make things easier.

"Sinister Vibes" is the debut from this new Finnish band and the sound is rooted around 1970's Rock and late 1970's Punk music. Clocking in at around 35 minutes or so across 10 tracks, this debut is filled with nothing but energetic, dirty and raw Hard Rock music which may have a retro focus in terms of the sound. The production has managed to make it sound modern so it's more enjoyable as a result, which is something that some bands fail to pull off as they can sometimes forget to give the production a modern sound instead of making it sound like they are living in the past. I'm glad that's not the case here.

From start to end, it's one constant barrage of high volume, dirty, raw and energetic Rock music with heavy guitars everywhere that assault you with savage riffs and fast paced solos while occasionally allowing the rhythm section and the singer to show off their stuff.  You get to hear quite a lot of on all of the albums songs including numbers such as "Dead Dogs", "Cut to the Bone", "Deadweight", "Hey You" and "Gunpoint" to name a few.

Anything to moan about? Apart from the fact that the lyrics can be a bit hard to make out from time to time, there's really nothing to nitpick on or criticize as the energetic performances of the music on this debut make up for any shortfalls which you soon forget about it as you crank it loud and rock out.

Bottom line, the debut from HARD ACTION is yet another fine example of the great tunes that Finland has been cranking out these days. They really are on par with the Swedes when it comes to great European Rock and Metal music making this an absolute must-have for your music collections if you like Finnish Rock, European music or just great energetic Rock music that you can crank loud and rock out to.