photo courtesy of Axminster

EP Review of Axminster: Mad As Hatters

Veteran melodic hard rockers Axminster continue to churn out kickass rock ‘n roll with the band’s latest 4-song EP Mad As Hatters. You’ve previously read my reviews of Tightrope and Bada Boom! Well, the band continues in the same ’80s-style melodic hard rock you’ll hear on SiriusXM’s Hair Nation channel… but, you know, new song in that vein.

Axminster is Benny Fiorentino (lead guitar), Steve Sera (lead vocals, guitar), Danny Callan (bass), and Xanon Xicay (drums). I was a huge supporter of Steve Sera’s Wildside back when I got my start as a music journalist in Boston, and his vocals are those of a timeless classic rock leadman. Meanwhile, Fiorentino’s lead guitar chops are among the best in the business, providing an inspired, original sound to each song on this EP (and the band’s past collections, too). Combined with the band’s solid, versatile rhythm section, Axminster has delivered in Mad As Hatters a foursome of new, top-notch classic melodic rock tunes.

image courtesy of Axminster

“World Gone Crazy” utilizes some sidewinder axwork and a steady, thumping rhythm as its baseline soundbed, while the supporting music adjusts to Sera’s vocal stylings during the bridges, and Fiorentino delivers some nifty shredding, including some almost chainsaw-like revs during the song’s guitar solo.

“Rat Race” relies on both a guitar shred and a secondary guitar line to provide dual threat variety for the listener during the guitar-driven sections, while the song itself is a breakneck race to the end. Guitar rock fans, again, will dig a late song solo where you can almost feel the guitar soaring overhead (an image that’ll almost certainly pop into the heads of anyone who watched MTV back in the ’80s).

“Down to the Wire” kicks off with a funky blues-based hard rock rhythm and features stop-starts – guitar rock with great vocals and a herky-jerky rhythm not unlike what you might expect from an early Extreme song – resulting in a churning, high-energy number you might expect from a band who could share a bill with Living Colour.

Axminster ends Mad As Hatters with the wild “Ya Monkey.” another solid classic hard rock number with throwback guitar licks, a heavy rhythm, and some tempo variance that provides texture to the verses, which, lead to the payoff in the chorus of “I’m livin’ in your twilight (sometimes combat) zone. Got ya monkey on my back, and my back’s gonna break.”

If you dig ’80s-style classic hard rock, replete with guitar shredding and insistent, high-energy vocals, this EP will bring you back in time with a four-pack of original, new, soon-to-be-favorites. So keep discovering new music in the style you love, and check out Axminster’s Mad As Hatters.