Band:	Firebird
Album:	Double Diamond
Style:	Blues rock, Stoner rock
Release date:	2010

01. Soul Saviour
02. Ruined
03. Bright Lights
04. For Crying Out Loud
05. Farewell
06. A Wing & Prayer
07. Pound Of Flesh
08. Arabesque
09. Lose Your Delusions
10. Pantomime

Preface: This is NOT a metal album, a fact that is clearly stated in the opening paragraph to the review below. It is posted as it might be of interest, given the past \m/ history of members.

Firebird were launched as a band in the power trio mold (see: Cream) from former Carcass guitarist Bill Steer along with drummer Ludwig Witt (Spiritual Beggars) and Leo Smee (Cathedral) on bass. Over the course of the last decade they have had some turnover, with Bill and Ludwig appearing on this record, and Greyum May now on bass.

Double Diamond is their sixth release, but my first taste of this trio. Truth be told, I'm not terribly impressed. Frankly, they sound like the bar band that can be found plugging away on stage every night at seedy dive bars that litter the American south and southwest. You know the kind? the ones that get out on stage and hammer out Skynyrd and Molly Hatchet covers, occasionally mixing in some of their own songs, which meet with a response being the crowd calling out for more Skynyrd or .38 Special.

They might have intended on being a modern Cream but Double Diamond just sounds like a 2nd rate Southern Rock band. (Insert joke here about how close the band name is to the Southern Rock anthem "Free Bird".) The music is there, there are some good riffs found in the album, as in the main riff of "For Crying Out Loud" but ultimately it just seems to lack soul and grit. The production is okay, I guess, but a little weak and a little clean, and the vocals are mediocre. I think the attitude was supposed to be there, but just wasn't?

I mean the songs are all okay, with some good solos. It's not that the music is bad? it's just not particularly good. Or memorable, rather. Having spun it a few times, I remember liking a couple solos and the fact that the opening track contains more than enough cowbell to keep Christopher Walken's prescription filled for years.

Now I am no master of rock history, own no Cream or Humble Pie albums, but I do live in a town with horrifically shitty radio? one where over the years as a metal/punk fan I get fired up and crank the dial hard and to the right whenever "Flirting With Disaster" comes on. So this album isn't in my comfort zone or my realm of expertise, but it is a style of music that has slowly been adding itself to my collection over the years. I guess that admission is just a disclaimer to say that my opinion really shouldn't matter terribly much (in general, but more specifically in the case of this review)? I just found this album meh + cowbell.

And if cowbell is the biggest takeaway from an album, I guess that says something.