Taylor Hawkins & The Coattail Riders – Red Light Fever

TAYLOR HAWKINS & TH COATTAIL RIDERS – RED LIGHT FEVER

20th April 2010

Shannabelle/RCA Records

So what do you think Foo Fighters drummer can come up with? Well, I certainly didn’t expect this. Straight off a little mix of Queen, The Darkness and a dirty riff! Taylor’s vocals sound awesome and Not Bad Luck is so catchy with awesome guitars. Your Shoes starts very Foo’s sounding, understandable, but this track, along with the entire album, has some kind of old fashioned rock n roll feel to it that can appeal to anyone – I like it. Way Down really shows off Taylor’s vocals with such a raw rough sound, very gritty, and goes well with this style of rock. It also reminded me of Roger Taylor’s vocals, but after further investigation turns out Roger is actually a contributing to back up vocals for this track. And guess what, Brain May also contributed guitar for some tracks along with Dave Grohl with some guitars and vocals too.

It’s Over then flips and goes all psychedelic on us in the intro only to slow down into a smooth verse, this album starts off a little eccentric, sometimes pushing the limits of what can be put together, yet remaining cohesive. Unfortunately the album then starts loosing pace and heads towards the middle of the road with just a couple more slightly upbeat tracks at the end of the album.

Red Light Fever starts well but then becomes quite average just before halfway. Certainly worth giving a chance and the band play well live, as seen at Download Festival 2010.

★★✩✩✩  Album of the Week, 29/06/10