It's one of those things. You mention a year like 1989 to people my age and it's no big deal. Everything is copacetic until something makes you pull out your phone and you do the math: 1989 was thirty four years ago. THIRTY FOUR YEARS AGO!!! What the hell?!?! What the hell has happened?!?!
Anyway, in 1989 an album came out on Chrysalis Records (home of names like UFO & JETHRO TULL) by a San Francisco band called SEA HAGS. I'd read about them a couple years before in Ron Quintana's Metal Mania, then wrote & got their demos (produced by Kirk Hammett) for my own review. When the album came out, me and perhaps a few other people bought the CD and jammed the living shit out of it. It was sleazy, in-yer-face rawk candy that was 100x better than "Appetite For Destruction," just nobody really knew it. The band went to tour Europe then broke up. But I didn't forget them. Their solitary CD has been in my rotation...yeah, I know...for 34 years and I really haven't ever heard another album that's made me say "This reminds me of the SEA HAGS."
Until now. Because that's what this sleazoid houserocker debut by TRADING ACES makes me think of in the fondest ways. And who would have the savvy to find a band like this in 2023? Well, brother Todd Severin (Ripple Music), and dang if the good doc hasn't just unleashed TA's "Rock-N-Roll Homicide" on your back alley.
TRADING ACES is made up of members from an international cast of STREETWALKIN' CHEETAHS, WARRIOR SOUL & THE CITY KIDS. And as a debut title, "Rock-N-Roll Homicide" is pretty damn apt. See, I like this because with it, Ripple takes about as far a step away from heavy, thudding stoner doom as Billy Duffy could throw a leg-split shape...And yet, this still kicks maximum ass. Make that ASS. It's revvin'!!! I doubt I have to go into specific details here when you look at that cover art by Tim Gabor and then read titles like: "Ain't It A Bitch," "Hello Hangover" & "Napalm Bombs." This isn't music you're going to light up a patchouli candle & meditate to. Add in the shifty, soulful guest sax by Geoff Yeaton on a couple tracks and there's depth in the beer puddles on the bar room floor. The ante is upped to the max by the covers of FRANK ZAPPA's "Dirty Love" (what a super-cool inclusion this is!) and the VAN HALEN swinger, "In A Simple Rhyme." When I tell you the latter flawlessly brings the album to a close with the crazy little VH riff-ditty "Growth," I mean to say "Ah, yeah!" Somewhere the SEA HAGS are smiling.
TRADING ACES:
Frank Meyer - lead vocals, guitars
Dennis Post - guitars, vocals
Bjarne Paamand Olsen - bass
Ivan Tambac - drums
