[Review] Drunk Jackals - Buzz Addiction

Drunk Jackals is a rock band from Corinth, Greece that recently released its second full album "Buzz Addiction" and they were kind enough to send it to us to give it a listen prion to its release. They have already released an EP (Seven Souls, 2016) and a full album (Countryside, 2017).

Despite the fact than I've been aware of their existance and been familiar with their music for quite a while I only got to watch them live last year @ Under the Sun festival 2018. Not knowing what to expect about their appearance on stage I was very glad to see a band full of energy and with passion to rock that stage and despite the fact that the crowd was still warming up, for me it was the perfect warm up. And that's mostly because the live versions of their songs were much more groovy and energetic compared to the studio recordings.

The reason for the above intro is just to make the following point: Drunk Jackals have so far followed the diy road for their releases, but only this third time they managed through the recordings and the whole procuction process to give to the final result a feeling much much closer to the feeling a listener gets while watching them live. Listening to 'Buzz Addiction' really brought to my mind the memories of their live performance and their energy.

In the past the band has stated numerous bands as their influences and among those are bands like: White Stripes, T-Rex, ZZ Top, AC/DC, The Rolling Stones, Spoon, Dinosaur Jr, The 13th Floor Elevators, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Black Angels. The 'funny' thing is that if you listen carefully to 'Buzz Addiction' you may find a few of them quite easily (try AC/DC 😉) but definitely not all of them. Despite the fact that the whole album has a clear musical orientation and style I have the impression that the band's musical style is still evolving, changing, it's a bit dynamic and still on the move. Maybe it is just an impression but I am quite positive that we're going to witness pretty diverse things in the future from this band, regarding its releases.

There is no point in trying to strictly categorize the sound of Drunk Jackals in this album and although the band states that they play "Garage rock", which is somehow true, it wouldn't be fair to narrow it down to that and only that. Various influences are surfacing as the album flows, with lots of references in past decades of course, but always filtered through a more contemporary prism.
The most obvious characteristic of the whole album is that it gets to you from the first song and then it's just dragging you until the last one like a rollercoaster coming down the hill, it's like the band stepped on the accelarator pedal and is just cruising on an endless highway. The only 'slower' exceptions are 'Back of My Head' (7th) which is just a tiny-little slower than the rest and 'Under the Gun' which is actually the last song of the album.

"Buzz Addiction" gives off a quite classic attitude, a sort of 'honest', not pretentious rock approach that is counted in the pros of the album. It contains compositions that will satisfy the lovers of riffs and of heavier stuff but will also sound familiar and attractive to those with a more classic ear. However, the fact that it contains 'songs that can be sung', with lyrics that in some cases may speak to one's mind makes the whole release radio friendly in a way.

Listen below and see for yourself if what you just read was pure bs or not😜

Enjoy!

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Drunk Jackals is:

Teo ◌ vocals

Leslie ◌ guitar

'Polonos' ◌ bass

Panagos ◌ drums