Album Review: The Hellacopters - Eyes Of Oblivion
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
Swedish veterans, The Hellacopters, return with Eyes of Oblivion, their first new album since 2008’s Head Off and the first regrouping since the 2016 one-off show to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Supershitty to the Max debut. Nicke Andersson has managed to get the bulk of the original line-up back for album number eight, with only bassist Dolf DeBorst not having a long association with the band.
The Hellacopters have a long history of high-profile festival appearances and supports slots on tours with Kiss, Black Sabbath, ZZ Top and the Foo Fighters; and, let’s face it, when you been out with the Stones you can safely lay claim to have made-it.
Eyes of Oblivion is a little like The Hellacopters looking to reset themselves by channelling all their influences through the ten songs on offer here. From the 70s Glam Rock of Tin Foil Soldier to the hard rockin’ punk overtones of Beguiled, the band take the listener on a journey through the last fifty-years of rock.
At the core of every track are the driving beats and hard rock riffs that don’t let up from beginning to end. Reap a Hurricane begins with the twin guitar attack and establishes an incessant momentum that infects the rest of the album. Blended into the clean guitar and heart-beat bass are spiralling solos and some good time boogie-woogie piano.
So Sorry I Could Die takes that barroom feel and runs with it, adding a raw-throated vocal line to the bluesy vibe. A Plow and a Doctor adds an element of sleaze to the proceedings, giving the whole thing a dirty feel.
For all its dalliances with other music movements, Eyes of Oblivious is stoically a Hard Rock record and those rockin’ riffs are the primary flavour of every track. Positively Not Knowing stands somewhere in the liminal space between hard rock and heavy metal, a sort of NWoBHM no-man’s land, but there’s also something of the Deep Purple about a song that utilises a big organ sound and an impassioned guitar solo.
Eyes of Oblivion, the album, can concisely be summed up by Eyes of Oblivion, the song. It’s a powerful hard rocker, built on a driving rhythm with a singalong chorus that is as catchy as anything you’ll hear all year and as fist-pumpingly anthemic as you could ask. It is – to all intents and purposes – one heck of a banging tune.
They might have been on a prolonged hiatus, but The Hellacopters have returned over-flowing with creative juices and all set to unleash as finer hard rock record as anything waiting in the wings during 2022. It’s an unseasonably warm early spring day as I write, and thoughts are inevitably turning to big stages in big fields; any warm summer day, as the sun sets and stains the sky red, would only be enhanced by the sound of The Hellacopters strutting their stuff.
