The Bangkok Five – Who’s Gonna Take Us Alive

The Bangkok Five – Who’s Gonna Take Us Alive
UMVD – 2006
Rock, Stoner, Garage, Punk
Waardering: ****

We continue the Rancho De La Luna month with another piece of excellent punk energy. A band which will probably also be lesser known but has a couple of serious strings running towards Rancho. I am referring to The Bangkok Five. This typical LA band is lead by Nik Frost and has had some seminal Rancho players in the band. For instance the first drummer of The Bangkok Five who were then called LowFive was Nicky Lucero; the Queens of The Stone Age drummer from the Rated R period and who also played with The Flys and Masters of Reality. And Peter Perdichizzi who ofcourse also played with The Flys and Goon Moon offered his guitar-duties to LowFive. Chris Goss helped produce their record back then and Dave Catching provided new guitarplayers when the first ones decided to leave. Their Who’s Gonna Take Us Alive album from 2006 is pure punk attitude and full of energy. It’s down and dirty rock ’n roll with the justified amount of fun. The sound on the entire records bears mentioning. From the gigantic tone on the riffs, to the responsible use of electronic elements and samples, the band has nailed the production on this record thanks to Sean E and Ryan Boesch. The guitars jump right out into the front of the mix, as they should, and everything else falls into place around them. Add to that well-balanced song writing that features paint-peeling guitar in just the right ratio to more spacious arrangements and you've got a killer album. Leather jackets and guitars transcend any kind of trend if the music backs it up. A bled-together mix ensures that chaos reigns supreme, but the individual instrumentation is still solid. Little guitar and drum fills pepper the recording and keep things interesting on repeated listens.

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