The Bad Flowers - Starting Gun album review

Petal-to-the-metal heavy rock debut

Cover art for The Bad Flowers - Starting Gun album

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The term ‘power trio’ could have been invented to describe this Midlands-based band, so direct and forceful is this propulsive first full-length album. Springing from the traps at full pelt with single Thunder, it, displays some impressive songwriting chops and a knowing ear for a solid melodic hook, best exemplified by the helter-skelter riffing of Hurricane, Lion’s Blood and City Lights, singer/guitarist Tom Leighton hollering his lungs out with almost ridiculously over-the-top conviction.

Far from being stuck in overdrive throughout, they do quiet and subtle too, on the acoustic I Hope and the slow-burn-to-full-conflagration Let’s Misbehave, but tracks like Secrets, with its Rival Sons-style distorted bass, and the Maiden-esque gallop of I Don’t Believe It are where the real meat lies, the band delivering performances positively seething with raw energy and passion. This is surely an album of material designed for maximum live impact.

Essi Berelian

Whether it’s magazines, books or online, Essi has been writing about rock ’n’ metal for around thirty years. He has been reviews editor for Classic Rock and Metal Hammer, rock reviews editor for lads mag Front and worked for Kerrang!. He has also written the Rough Guide to Heavy Metal and contributed to the Rough Guide to Rock and Rough Guide Book of Playlists, and the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles (13th edition). Most fun interview? Tenacious D – Jack Black and Kyle Gass – for The Pick of Destiny movie book. An avid record/CD/tape collector, he’s amassed more music than he could ever possibly listen to, which annoys his wife no end.