Consider a mix or kerosene, Jim Beam, vintage Rolling Stones with a shot of Jack White and you’ve got yourself a Rock-N-Roll Soldiers cocktail that aims to blow your mind. Fighting against the “plethora of local hippie folk rock jam bands who badmouth the Soldiers saying that they are nothing but teenage drunks,” this Eugene, Oregon foursome rips at the jeans of the past, present, and future all-out-rockers with a duo EP release appetizer to their full-length So Many Musicians to Kill due out this summer.
It takes a certain type of musician and style to pull off “baby” in any song, but the Soldiers have all the right stuff to keep things from becoming too contrived. This magic trick continues, even into “Everybody’s Gotta Live” with lyrics that are far from profound, “Everybody’s gotta live / And everybody’s gonna die…Sometimes the going gets good / Then again it gets pretty rough.” You don’t say? The rabbit in the hat is that innate desire to grab the stranger next to you with a drunken Irish swagger bear hug and sing along, arm in arm, as if you’re both childhood friends who’ve been through those good and bad times as a team.
A subtle nitrogen air of a Zeppelin riff comes to play on “Can’t Break Glass,” getting dizzy with a saucy blues tenacity, which splits off to another dive bar ditty “Three Goddamns,” with all the classic back porch instrumentation.
All four members have yet to hit their quarter-life crises, so they’ve got nothing but the future ahead of them. They’ve already hit England on tour and have hung out at the Playboy mansion, so I’m guessing they’re off to more than a good start.
Gearhead Records/EastWest
