OUTLAW DEVILS. The name itself says to me "double trouble". Not just an outlaw, or a devil, but an outlaw devil...and a group of them! That's 8X trouble for those of you keeping count. As much as I'd like to say they live up to this expectation, I cannot. Flitting echoes of CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL (in a cover of "Fortunate Son"(1969), RED FANG, LED ZEPPLIN, and TROUBLE, bubble about this raucous, staggering, 80s-saturated bender.  So, maybe like 2.5x trouble in lower case. It's an old road these guys are treading, fit more for the 1980s than the 2020s, but hey, better late than never, right?

The intro to "Bastard Sons Of Rock And Roll" is a nice back and forth mumble between the bass, and guitar to be repeated throughout the chorus. It builds up a little slow, ascends to a slightly up-beat tempo, and levels off, a rudimentary breakdown/bridge/lead, and we're back on the road home. Although I was hoping for more out of "Raising Hell", it seemed straight, basic rhythms, moderate leads, and a foot-stomping beat were going to be the norm for this release. Somewhere around the end of "Night Grooves", the drummer finally decided to up his game a little bit, and put his double bass to some real use. For much of the song, the groove was slow, dark and foreboding, but somewhere around 2:34, this rip of "Hey, Hey, Hey" over some thick double bass tweaked my "metal" nipple, but just a little, and a little more at the finish. Honestly I would have appreciated just a bit more.

"All Time High" reminds me bit of SKINDRED's Machine (2018), although a slower, less articulate version. It holds a steady beat, and has fitting leads that don't color too far outside the lines. I still feel STEEL PANTHER covered the subject matter better in "Let's Get High Tonight"(2020).  By "Sweat" we were back down to that straight-forward, basic drive, with an occasional catchy hook. A little crunchy, but still pretty basic, and relatively casual. That is until "Hellbound" came up. Tempo, and energy-wise this song was such a departure from the rest of the album that I wondered if a song from another band might have made it into my play-list. Although it wasn't the first song with a breakdown, I think this was the first one where I noticed a drop in tempo significant enough to make it stick out.

I'm not sure where all the nostalgia for 80s rock and roll is coming from, but these guys give it a good solid run. If this had come out sometime between 1975, and 1985, I think it would have fit in much better with the times, if not be just a little ahead. The production on this is really what saves it in my book. It's not that the songs are "bad" per se, they just aren't very deep, and the hooks are fairly surface, with little, if any flare, or spice. For what it lacks in the imagination department "The Bastard Sons Of Rock N Roll", would be a good album to play at a party between high points. You know, when you want people to keep drinking, and smoking, but not throwing furniture, and/or hitting on other people's spouses.