I got to say that although THE GENDERS are a band from my home country I didn't know anything about them until I saw them by mistake performing live and supporting the British KING LIZARD. The thing is that I thought that that KING LIZARD are going to be supported by a different band, yet then THE GENDERS hailed to the stage and the romance began. I was amazed by their sheer Hard Rock brute force and power while performing. After the show I had a chat with them and they told me that they just released a new album, sorry to say that I started to jump all over and asked (begged) to have the album for a review and so I did.

THE GENDERS's album is named "Guts & Heartstrings" and it's a very appropriate title for a band that perform a brave mix between bands like AC/DC, THE WHO and even some THE ROLLING STONES. For me this is quite an occasion as in Israel it is rare, and even nonexistent to witness to such a mix, especially of AC/DC and THE WHO. So after all the babbling above let's talk about the album itself. "Guts & Heartstrings" comes with eleven tracks, which I am positive you will find your groove in.

"Black Summer", the album's opener, is crucial for the comprehension of the band's musical diversity within Rock. This tune is the thin line between the bitterness of Hard Rock into the veils of the fun riff raff. "Knee High Boots", following, keeps the things in a high gear with a great THE WHO style riffing along with a great job by Amir Neubach on the vocals, stomping with some British accent. That is two in a row guys.

"Break My Heart" is with no doubt an AC/DC riffer followed by a great chorus and lead guitar implementations. "Rock Bottom" shows that emotiveness of the band of the band, a more acoustic meets distortion with a gentle vocals in the chorus kind of pattern. I think that in the chorus I hit rock bottom in a good way, a classic. Yohai Portal on lead guitar provides great soloing with several Slash signatures. "No Guts No Glory" hails through the early days of KISS with yet another addictive chorus. No good Hard Rock or Glam Metal album is complete without a classic power ballad, so here we got "Win You Over", a great song with weeping lead guitar.

In my bill, the best song on the album is "Drink Up" with a more aggressive playing that venture to the realms of Glam Metal, more a MOTELY CRUE style made well. "Sweet Denial" proclaims a meeting of Glam with slight Industrial feel on the riffs and yet again I loved it. The last track "Tip of the Iceberg" is more of a classic American Hard Rocker in the vein of CINDERELLA, hard to the core of Rock and THE GENDERS made quite an honor with it.

So the question remains where the hell these guys have been hiding all this time? I don't know, however I'm glad that they came out from there comfort zone with "Guts & Heartstrings" is a brilliant album and a great addition to the Hard N' Heavy form of music in general. However, don't let the album shift you from the real goal, which is to go and see THE GENDERS live.