With a mission to reignite the “no regret rock’n’roll” world, the five-piece band, The Howling Tongues, are set to release their self-titled, first full-length album. The album starts off with “Gotta Be a Man,” a lyric heavy starter appropriately backed by quick catchy blues tinged guitar riffs and lead singer Taylor Harlow’s raspy vocals over some deep drum riffs invoking a southern rock essence right out of the gate. While the album continues along this path throughout, there are three tracks in a row “Chainsaw,” “Strange Way to Say Goodbye,” and “Fade Away” that edge so close to 90’s butt rock that I have a hard time listening to them, seriously. After this awkward center is the track, “The Sound,” which has guitar riffs that are harrowingly close to Led Zepplin’s “Kashmir” that are reused in P.Diddy’s “Come With Me,” which is all I hear when this song plays, as I imagine Godzilla tramping around Atlanta chasing Matthew Broderick. It’s a lot of the same with the following few tracks until closer “Too Many Times” that sounds like an old porch hymn. It’s classic in sound with acoustic guitar picking and simple rhythm from the drums and solidly closes out the album. Considering the rest of the album, this track stands apart and alone pretty well, but only serves as a good complimentary ending track to what is otherwise a complete rock album.

The lyrics are pretty stagnant throughout the album as all emotion in the words are tied up in clichés like the opening track’s chorus, “That one thing’s for certain, you’re one in a million” or through drawn out syllables as in “Strange Way to Say Goodbye-eye-eye-eye-eye.” Sometimes they drop into weak raps on songs like “Fade Away” and “I’m In Love” that include gimmicky rhymes on the jam band classic trick of high hat tapping while they change pace. It is not a terribly creative effort, but I think it fits the genre they’re aiming for. Taylor Harlow has some vocal chops, but his lyrics could stand to be improved a great deal. I suspect it translates into a live show pretty well, as the whole band is clearly skilled with their respective instruments, and the real shining parts of the album are during the instrumental solos; I wouldn’t pass up seeing them live. It’s the first-full length for these Atlanta Rockers and they are talented enough to do something, but for now they lack an original sound to grab onto.

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August 26th, 2013 – Everett Verner