Mmmmm...I needed that. When the needle threads the rhythm and the sound flows like pure silk it's hard not to let the stitches loose. There is a particular shiver that crawls under the skin when you witness true musicality in the flesh. It is that groove that makes you shake, that surge that makes you sweat...it is that undiluted Rock that gets you through the day.

Mantras aside, good musicianship is becoming something of a rarity in the modern day and age; and yes, that may be somewhat of a hackneyed statement - for there are plenty of good bands out there in the wide open - but when it comes to the essence of bandsmanship, the art of the jam, one often has to result to scoring hits of Prog or going back to the old school to get their fix. Yet sometimes, as you traverse those dark alleys in search of the good stuff, you come across a paradoxically new Classic Rock band that is so pure in their approach that you don't even feel wrong about getting hooked...and if their debut is anything to go by, SUICIDE BY TIGERS is that band.

Find that vein, for it is about to be full of that revered gold. This record is a pure, hard-hitting dose of Blues-tinged, Funk-beaten, Jazz-soaked Rock; a fusion of four Swedish musicians spliced to create the most potent of concoctions. As "Death On Your Trail" kicks open this jam, you have no choice but to let out a sigh of pleasure as the band glides in on smooth Robin Trower-esque guitar lines and air tight drumming that could carry a bucket of water and not spill a drop. The percussive efforts of Johan Helgesson are indeed at the centre of this soulful enterprise (I have not laid my ears upon such exciting drumming in a very long time) for he manages to combine a penchant for hard hits with a groovy smoothness that is not often seen in Hard Rock. Every track sees Helgesson bang out the heavy punches of John Bohnam with the precision of Buddy Rich and show you exactly why the drummer is the backbone of a band; phenomenal player.

"Beautiful Night" slows things down and allows for Nils Lindström to showcase his Ian Gillian vocal stylings across a crawling yet spruce southern Blues Rock number. SUICIDE BY TIGERS do indeed prefer a slower, almost Stoner gauged pace - as is echoed in the THE BLACK CROWES-inspired "Fox In The Hole" and the "Dazed And Confused" ode "Vicious Malicious" - and yet those numbers don't drag, on the contrary, the band's musical approach and performance manages to inject them with a particular brand of energy that makes you feel every groove all the way through your pelvic region and rise in excitement; and don't be fooled, for the band also show their fangs on the kinky "Pack Of Wolves" and the gritty sweat-drenched riff machine "Ball Of Fire". For all the album's merits, the pacing and the somewhat interchangeable nature of the songs do indeed put a slight blemish on this recording, for the tracks do tend to be overly homogenous, however, their soulful executions raises them above water so that they still shine.

Now I don't say this often, but the production is pretty much flawless; this is a band that is tearing the studio apart whilst the engineer is capturing this soulful exorcism with the cleanliness of a priest. The guitar and bass presence too is the thing of Blues Rock dreams, with bassist Peter Broch simply cruising all over the fretboard whilst guitarist Petter Rudnert taps into that neck pickup for a delicious serving of creamy Strat tones.

Overall - "Suicide By Tigers" is an album-long jam session that is simple and yet ferocious in its approach. Through teamwork, feel and commitment SUICIDE BY TIGERS have cooked up a method for musical greatness with a record that channels the spirits of bands like DEEP PURPLE and stands side by side with their musical prowess. This is what you call a BAND.