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EP Review: Stonetrip – The Fight

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photo courtesy of BJF PR

EP Review of Stonetrip: The Fight

If you dig filthy-catchy, hard-driving, bluesy melodic hard rock, Stonetrip is the new favorite band you’ve been looking for. With shades of Aerosmith woven throughout the band’s sound – but also some bluesy hard rock bands like Tora Tora and the tuneful hitwriting skills of the likes of Firehouse in the mix, as well – Stonetrip delivers a big, bold, warmly inviting style of blues-based melodic hard rock that’s certain to draw fans from a broad swath of the rock ‘n roll spectrum. Seriously, if you don’t know about these guys yet, y’all don’t know what you’re missing!

In fact, this is a callout to my old, classic hard-rocking friends – loosen your grip on those old Tesla, BulletBoys, Extreme, Warrant, Aerosmith, and Slaughter albums and update and expand your playlists. I mean, I’m not saying you should be embarrassed about being old; I’m saying you should be embarrassed about being boring and predictable. If you read the blog, you’re probably already discovering some great new music even if your favorite rock ‘n roll neighborhood hasn’t changed in decades, but if not, hey, start with these guys. I’m tellin’ ya, fresh, energetic, original music in the style you love, from a band that would have been selling out arenas in the day (and will hopefully catch lightning in a bottle anyway regardless of the year), with an original style that you’ll instantly recognize as Stonetrip once you get to know ’em. Oh, and for young fans of good, classic hard rock – check it out! This is an awesome band your dad probably hasn’t heard yet (but he should!). OK, enough of my “there’s great new music out there you should listen to, too, you stubborn old people!” rant. Let’s get to the review.

image courtesy of BJF PR

The Review

The Fight kicks off with the EP’s title track, “The Fight,” a straightforward, big-sound, shredding, pounding hard rocker that comes at you just a little off-kilter. It’s actually a powerful mid-tempo rocker with relatable but deep lyrics worth rocking out to. Harmonies, hooks, power chords, energetic but controlled guitar solo… helluva way to kick of the record! By the end of the first listen, you’ll be singing along with the line “it won’t be tonight.” Quite probably not just the lead vocal line but also the echo background line, “won’t be tonight.”

“Beautiful You,” next, has an almost late ’80s Bad Company-ish lead-in before opening up into a big, wide-sounding guitar riff-driven song. It leans as heavily on the tuneful, emotive, and powerful vocals as it does on the churning guitar builds that lead to the chorus. This one’ll have you air-guitaring and air-drumming from time to time. It’s as catchy as the title track.

It’s followed by the hooky, sidewinding rocker “Fame,” the song that introduced me to Stonetrip and that I reviewed last year here at the Blog. It still grabs me as hard as the moment I first heard it more than a year ago.

“Postcards,” next, opens with the kind of filthy bluesy guitar riff you might expect from a George Thorogood number, but the song then opens up a bit, its big, bright sound being more akin to something you might expect from a band like Tora Tora.

The EP closes with “My Angel (Radio Edit),” a classic, guitar-laden, soaring power ballad, replete with gravelly, emotional vocals, a completely slow-danceable rhythm, and a last near-minute that’s nothing but a wailing, howling guitar riff and the strained vocals of “you’re my angel” a few times, as the song sways and fades to its close. It’s a melodic hard rock ballad of the very best kind, a shortened, 3 1/2-minute, radio-friendly version of the rock club-friendly 5-minute version that included an additional 1 1/2 minutes of howling, wailing, and rockin’-slow-song shredding when it appeared on the band’s self-titled EP in 2021.

And that’s it. Five short songs, all of which will end up on your “personal favorites” playlist. Well, on mine, anyway, which is really what’s most important to me. But honestly, there are links throughout this review. Go listen to the band’s songs and discover them for yourself!

Single Review: Stonetrip – “Fame”

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photo courtesy of BJF Media

Single Review of Stonetrip: “Fame” (Golden Robot Records)

Melbourne rockers Stonetrip are Mark Ritchie (vocals), Mick Malusa (guitars), Sebastian Barahona (bass), Simon Croft (guitars), and Brett Spicer (drums). The band’s latest hard-rocking single, “Fame,” just dropped a few weeks ago. And from its opening lyrics, you immediately know it’s not a song celebrating “Fame.” The song begins, “You don’t want for anything that doesn’t give you fashion or fame. You showed me your true colors when you tainted me with your stain.” Well!

image courtesy of BJF Media

Musically, you may notice just a hint of “Sweet Emotion” in the opening riff, but that’s the last you’ll think of Aerosmith, at least as a comparison, though stylistically Stonetrip would be a good tour pairing with just about any classic rock act. After the opening riff, the song quickly evolves into a raucous, slightly Southern rock-seasoned, guitar-driven, classic hard rock number. There’s a sidewinding bluesy element in the guitarwork atop a strong, though not exactly straight-ahead, drum beat. No the drumming’s a lot more interesting than that, even as the rhythm section relentlessly drives the song forward. It’s also worth noting a late-song guitar solo that’ll appeal to fans of nifty axework. Throughout, the vocals are rough-hewn, pure old-school rock vocals, with a tunefulness just barely tempers the intensity. In all, this is just a damn good classic rock/metal-influenced hard rock song with just enough of a hook in the guitarwork and vocals to make it memorable.

Hard-rockers, this is a song you should hear, particularly if your tastes favor classic rock and/or classic Southern rock influences.