A couple things happened at my place during the first weekend of 2014 that totally took me back in time. The first occurred when my daughter turned on a movie to watch, and suddenly I heard the familiar sounds of Warrant playing. I looked up at the TV to find her intently watching Rock of Ages. Watching the headbanging eighties unfurl within the fictitious rock bar called “The Bourbon Room”, I smiled remembering the fashions, the music and of course the hair of my youth. Just in case you missed it, it’s a musical set on the sunset strip in the mid 80’s with a soundtrack featuring Def Leppard, Poison, Twisted Sister, Bon Jovi and other hard melodic rock tunes.
The other was listening to the soon to be released self titled debut CD from Toronto rockers “SKROU”. From the opening crunchy power chords of “Place to Shake” I was grooving. A totally infectious, hard rock anthem filled with all the sleaze and attitude of the aforementioned sunset strip circa 1987. One hundred percent sleazy rock n roll at it’s finest or maybe that should read 100 proof sleazy rock n roll, either way I loved it. Time to head over to “The Bourbon Room”, order a Jack n Coke and bang my head, and that was just the first song.
Skrou have become a fixture on the Toronto music scene and I have been fortunate to catch a few of their shows over the last year. Always a great time, they deliver a tight set of melodic 80’s rock covering bands like Whitesnake, Scorpions and Ratt. All the while they have been hard at work preparing some originals to unleash in 2014.
From where I am sitting this CD provides a double barrel blast of ten vintage yet brand new songs. If you rocked along with the Crue, Ratt and Dokken than you should really dig this album. From the melodic groove of “Dirty Little Fantasy” to the shredding guitar on “Eye Catcher” to the Judas Priest feel riffs of “Ride On”, the ten songs found here lay it all on the line. Party rock is alive and well in Toronto and Skrou is here to provide the “place to shake”. In fact someone should be contacting Sirius Hair Nation and tell them to add this to their rotation! This review is over, I am going to contact Sirius myself. Horns up for Skrou!
