When Love Mound claim to play “loud-as-jets thunder rock” they certainly aren’t exaggerating. This band kicks so much fucking ass they must have a line of booty laid out before them at each gig waiting for their size 12s to make a dent. Not exactly stoner, not exactly grunge and not exactly southern rock but containing subtle nuances of all three bound up in some gargantuan riffs, raw soulful vocals and some of the catchiest damn tunes I’ve heard this side of the 1992. Imagine if Pearl Jam had grown up in Alabama smoking some badass herb and listening to a concoction of Skynyrd, The Allmans and Sabbath…only with a young Eddie Vedder spending more time fucking teenage girls instead of his mother!!!

Each of the nine all too brief incendiary nuggets displayed here bristle with a filthy level of cool that invokes a grimy Queens Of The Stone Age doing battle with Soundgarden topped off with those killer, on point vocals that range from dusty blues to pitch perfect harmonies. “Lawd It’s True” brings the groove like a motherfucker whereas opening track “Hell-Bound Train” rocks off its axles through to the brooding closing statement of “Black Mountain”. Stand out track? There isn’t one…this is a lesson in down and dirty rock and roll from start to finish.

It gives me hope that bands like Love Mound exist and it gives me hope that they are operating under the radar of the mainstream so the shit gets siphoned off into the pages of rags like Kerrang and we can keep stuff like this to those who actually give a fuck about the rock and the roll and not the hairstyles and the cut of the jeans. Rock is dead…long live rock!!!

Ollie Stygall
www.thesleepingshaman.com

Love Mound- 11pm, Izzy Edible- 10pm, The Dagg Nabbit Stubbs- 9pm

1/21 Hollywood Alley

Love Mound- 1130pm, Red Complex- 1030pm, Keeping Shay- 930