Hellacopters: Grande Rock (Sub Pop/Psychout)

The Hellacopters come to us from Sweden -- via '69 guitar-boogie Detroit, '73 lipstick-punk New York and '76 avant-garage Cleveland. The holy sites and great saints of American metallic garage rock -- including, but not limited to, the MC5, the Ramones, Kiss, the Dead Boys, the New York Dolls and the original Alice Cooper group -- are deeply embedded in the manic panic of Grande Rock, the Copters' third album. Singer-guitarist Nick Royale, keyboard dude Boba Fett and bass-drum boys Kenny and Robban Hellacopter kick out their jams with such bruised-knuckle, shredded-amp fervor that you can't help but forgive, and celebrate, their idolatry.

The cumulative effect of the Copters' crunch and velocity is like a mid-Seventies issue of Creem magazine come to life; even the song titles read like old Ted Nugent and Iggy Pop headlines ("Action De Grace," "Venus in Force," "Alright Already Now"). The Copters needn't have bothered writing a song called "Paul Stanley"; there's enough self-aggrandizement in the Kiss songbook already. Much better, and more to the point, is "The Devil Stole the Beat From the Lord," in which the Copters -- by virtue of spirit, riff and muscle -- show why he ain't getting it back anytime soon. (RS 818)

David Fricke - Rolling Stone

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