PISTOL DAY PARADE "Burn"

(C) 2013 Goomba Music

1. Rockstar's Girlfriend
2. Where I Lay
3. New Life
4. Angels On Fire
5. Not Today
6. Callous
7. Even When 
8. High
9. Get Over You 
10. Hollow
11. Better 
12. Down On Me

Fuller--Vocals

Rob Banks--guitars

Guido--Guitars

Jason Lollio--Bass

Jason Hartless--Drums

Additional Musicians

Steve Richards--Guitars on 3

From the moment "Rockstar's Girlfriend" kicks in, to the fading seconds of "Down On Me", the listener gets the sense that Detroit rockers, Pistol Day Parade, are here to serve notice that their brand of modern hard rock deserves to be listened to.  Forget big name record labels.  Forget massive promotion campaigns.  What matters in today's music scene is hard work, determination, guts, and, most importantly, a product that demands to be listened to.  Pistol Day Parade delivers just that with their new album, Burn.

Burn can be best described as part throwback to the post-grunge scene of the late-90's, part modern hard rock, and a touch of arena rock all wadded up into a rough ball and then jammed into your ears!  At times the band reminds me of the hardest rocking parts of a band like Hinder's All American Nightmare album, especially on the scathing, snarky "Rockstar's Girlfriend" with it's biting commentary about plastic hangers-on seeking fame and fortune through others.  If this sounds reminiscent of Hinder's "Striptease" it is, but it is not a copycat song at all, although it rocks every bit as hard.  The music doesn't back off from here, however, as several tracks are designed to crush the listener just as hard, or harder, with "New Life" being on of the most powerful as Fuller finds himself venturing a bit into screamer territory while the band adds some borderline metallic riffs to the music with some assistance on guitar from Steve Richards of Taproot. "High", which is a lovely little ditty about drug-addicted hookers, is another quality rocker that will have heads bobbing (no pun intended) and fists pounding with the rhythm.   

Of course, to make it in the modern rock world, there have to be a couple of more radio-friendly tracks, which PDP provide here alongside the harder rocking material.  However, when we are talking radio tracks here, we aren't talking your Top 40-styled rock songs that Nickelback and their ilk tend to offer up.  Instead, PDP keeps the rock mostly intact, just adding a bit more emotion to the lyrics and slowing things down a notch or two in spots, but aiming more for the airplay of satellite radio than your hometown hits station.  Album single, "Not Today", is a prime example of this type of track, as is "Better", which I'm not sure will actually find its way onto radio...but should.  "Hollow" is another emotion-filled track that offers considerably more than the cookie-cutter rock that floods radio today, and a song like "Angels On Fire" offer power and depth that is rarely heard outside of a band like Another Lost Year, Wayland, or similar acts that sit on the fringe of true rockstar status without compromising their style and sound to fit into current trends.

While they don't necessarily reinvent the wheel, Pistol Day Parade does seem to make the rock n roll machine speed along more smoothly without the bumps of stripped down acoustic numbers or bloated string sections that so many acts use without truly understanding how to properly include them.  No, Pistol Day Parade is exactly what they claim to be inside the liner notes of  Burn: they are American Rock N Roll, nothing more, nothing less.  They just do it better than most bands you have already heard of.  Hopefully Pistol Day Parade will be the next modern hard rock band to really break out and take their music to the masses.

Rating:  A definite crankable album here.  Spin the knob up to 8.5 for Pistol Day Parade's Burn!

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