Lowside
Self-titled

January 2013
Released: 2013, Self-released
Rating: 3.5/5
Reviewer: Metal-Rules.com UK Team

It’s always nice when musicians don’t hang up their coats when they leave a band, but instead try on a different number. Lowside is the new outfit featuring vocalist Ron Taylor, and guitarist Darrin DeLatte both formerly of Lillian Axe - that end-of 80s/90s hard rock band that didn’t seem to get the banner-waving parades of their peers.



Given that history it’s unsurprising that Lowside is pulled from the same hanger, but with some different detailing. For me the tracks swing between sounding a lot like Godsized - a UK heavy groove outfit with similar vocal harmonies; and the later, more commercial sound of Disturbed.



And no, that’s not a stretch too far when you hear the vocals on ‘Good Reason’, which also has that familiar guitar/drum rhythm. There’s a bit too much emphasis on slower fist-clenchers for my liking - ‘Any Day’, ‘Better’, ‘Change My Mind’, ‘All But Gone’ - all fine in their own right but difficult to separate in the wash. The same idea is done with more gravity on ‘Fear For You’ and ‘Allow Me’. And then out of its pockets the album pulls tracks with riffs so chunky you can’t break them in two such as ‘Here And Now’, bruiser ‘Numb’, and ‘Rise Above’, which has an awesome vocal breakdown.



If you think that score is a little on the low side (let me just hold my sides so my innards don’t fall out) it isn’t. As an album Lowside has definitely been cut from the right cloth, it’s just that some of the stitching is maybe a touch wonky. By that I mean that I found the production, which is handled by Sterling Winfield (Pantera/Damage Plan/Hellyeah), made it sound a little too homogenised, a touch like autotune for music - it meant I could hear every part perfectly but I missed that rougher tone.



Still when it comes to big rock sounds these guys show they still have it all buttoned up, and you’ll feel as comfortable with Lowside as you do your favourite T-shirt. Even more so if it’s one with their face on it.



Review by Kirsty Birkett-Stubbs