Album Review: Bazooka Troopaz - Scandinavian Head Splitter
Reviewed by Matthew Williams
With such awesome band member names as Sergeant Summers, Lieutenant Don Shrediablo and Colonel Frankie Key-Key, you have a pretty good idea of what this band are going to be all about, and that’s Fun with a capital F!!! Alongside a few other bands, notably Austria’s Insanity Alert and Boston’s Leather Lung, they are putting the excitement back into music so people can let their hair down, crack open a few beers and smile along to some cracking tunes.
Hailing from Trondheim, Norway, a country more synonymous with the Black Metal scene, this is something completely different, and they at it from the off with the album title track, “Scandinavian Head Splitter”. It proves that these can play their instruments and hammer out a nifty tune or two or even three and puts to bed the notion that their second album is some sort of bombastic nonsense, as it’s anything but that.
The shedding from the Lieutenant is damn fine and gives the old neck muscles a bit of a workout. “Kneel At The Altar” is a quick two minute thrash anthem, with a decent riff, as the Sergeant barks out the lyrics with great authority. The lovely bass intro to “Tank Abbott Diet” leads to another blistering riff that explodes from Don Shrediablo once again, and it drives the song on at a rapid pace. A similar bass/guitar combo serves them well again on “White Russian Leg Sweep” with the vocal giving that fun/party element from the beginning.
Next up, is a proper thrash track, with a tongue in cheek title, “Saving Whales Doesn’t Sell Albums (Leather Pants Do), just so you can see what they are all about. This is before their first single off this album, “The Booze Hounds of Hades” where their army personas are in full effect, just check out the promo for it, and the beer swilling party games take over, as they rightly should when you are having this much fun.
Their Nordic fighting spirit spills over with “The Fiercest of Warriors (In the Northern Hemisphere) as they “show them no mercy” in the truest sense of the word, before that traditional crossover thrash riff emerges again on “Zookafied”. We are given an amplified warning at the start of “Blazkowicz” that “the Troopaz is bad for your health” as it kicks off another frantic riff with drumming to match from the Colonel and high-pitched vocals from Sergeant Summers.
It’s all a bit breathless and non-stop and you don’t want it to end as you are having way too much fun with these crazy Norwegians. “Party Guerrilla Warfare” has a more traditional heavy metal feel to it, it’s short and snappy and almost demands that you chug your beer as quickly as possible. As with everything in this world, the trick is to stop before you do something stupid, and they end the madness with “Stay of Execution” which is led by another stellar riff that will make your kitchen mosh a lot more fun.
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