No, I´m neither on drugs, nor am I a fanatic Elvis fan. Ok,ok... to be honest, it´s not Elvis, but that was the first impression I got, when listening to the first tunes of The Strength, The Sound, The Songs from those Danish guys. Founded already in 2001 Volbeat released two demos and one single so far and with their first full-length album they immediately managed to convince everyone out there, who listenend to it. I must admit, that I haven´t heard anything of those guys before this album and besides that I was far from expecting something mind-blowing, when having a look at the name and cover. But how´s this saying : "Don´t judge anything on it´s outward appearance". A good thing I didn´t do it!

So, why such a strange beginning like "Elvis is alive" you might ask. Well, the vocalist of Volbeat, Michael Poulsen sounds like Elvis meets (early) Keith Caputo (on the River Runs Red album from Life of Agony). In addition to that there´s this special Rock´n Roll groove, like in the good old 60's, mixed up with heavy guitars, and pounding bass and drums and a bit of Metallica. It´s pretty hard to sit still, when you have this album in your hifi. And at the latest, when song number five Pool of Booze, Booze, Booza starts, you should be totally convinced of this groovy mixture. Should I perhaps call this Elvis Groove Metal?! When it´s comes to this "Elvisness", this touch becomes most clear in the song Caroline #1. It can´t sound more like The King. And the whole lyric of Caronline #1 is composed of Elvis songtitles. Any questions left?! The fourtenth song might sound familiar to some of you, as I Only Wanna Be With You, is a pretty cool coverversion of Dusty Springfields original from 1963.

When listening to the album for the first time I thought, that there must be some weak song, a song that doesn´t groove, that´s not as good as the rest. I didn´t find one after seven songs, not after ten and so I gave up! Those Danish guys are crazy : 15 great songs one album! There´s a hook on every songs, some catchy tune, a chorus to sing along, whatever. A perfect album to get in high spirits, when you´re down, at parties or everywhere else.

By the way, I just read that Volbeat managed to set some kind of record in their home country Denmark for reaching the best chartposition (place 18 in the Top 100), that any Danish Rock band could get in the last 10 years. Respect for that! And I really wonder, whether they got any bad review for The Strength, The Sound, The Songs ... I definitely doubt that.

To make a long story short, one might say that Volbeat brought the Metal back to it´s roots. It was rarely that easy to decide, how many points a record should get: Full marks without having to think twice!

written by Ateacina

Playing time: 55.11