Lizardmen Premiere “Steady Rolling Man” Video
German trio Lizardmen may have had their moniker in mind when they decided to call their 2016 StoneFree Records debut release Cold Blooded Blues (review here), but the truth is there’s very little frigid about it. Instead, the full-length comes across with an immediate tonal warmth, basking in neo-heavy fuzz and a post-Truckfigthers energy to which Lizardmen — the lineup comprised of guitarist/vocalist Nikki Engelbrecht, bassist Niklas Giese (also Into the Wild) and drummer Tobias — bring their own spin in the form of a blend of thickened grunge and weighted blues rock. Opener “Dust” sets the tone in a hook that owes as much of its churn to the ’90s as to the late ’10s, and where the subsequent “Turn the Screw” feels in part derived from the post-Queens of the Stone Age quirk of “Monte Gargano” by the aforementioned Truckfighters, the way the track takes off in its second half belongs more purely to Lizardmen themselves, and offers a clear signal that they’ve begun a process of exploring and discovering their sound and set forth to distinguish themselves from their influences.
That thread holds as “Seven” introduces more of their side rooted in blues progressions, and this will come up again later in the album on the penultimate “Steady Rolling Man” as well. The six-plus-minute track builds off a Robert Johnson original, “I’m a Steady Rollin’ Man,” recorded circa 1937, a sample of which also leads off in Lizardmen‘s new video, as if to emphasize the point. From there, however, Lizardmen coat the Delta blues vibe in fuzz riffing and a hard-driven groove, turning the line “You can’t give your sweet woman everything she wants at one time” from Johnson‘s version into their own “I ain’t got what you need — fuck off” as they rock out in an open space with their tour van behind them, standing ready to carry that message forth to any and all ears willing to hear it. As they add a psychedelic break and album-highlight solo in the song’s midsection, joints are rolled, weed is smoked and what looks like good times are had, so clearly, despite their protests to the contrary, they’ve got what somebody needs.
“Steady Rolling Man” caps with a final chorus before giving way to the crashing opening of nine-minute finale “The Cannibal,” which unfolds a chaos of its own in a more fuzzy bounce, psychedelia, and a particularly aggressive march that caps with a return of its initial thrust, so while the song before is catchy, righteously and thoroughly baked and born of multiple sonic traditions, it doesn’t necessarily speak to the entirety of Cold Blooded Blues from whence it comes. Fortunately, the whole thing is streaming on Bandcamp — also at the bottom of this post — for those who’d seek a deeper dive.
And the video makes a solid argument for one. Check it out below and please enjoy:
Lizardmen, “Steady Rolling Man” official video premiere
LIZARDMEN – you can hear the social isolation of the cold-blooded, feel the scaly saurian skin that spurns all touch. Sometimes, a guitar solo cleanses you like a venomous fang, and the white-hot pain creeps through your blood vessels straight into your heart.
Beasts in disguise invite you to revel in playful melodies or driving rhythms, but as soon as frontman Nikki approaches the mic, the grimy Grunge inevitably cracks the surface. His vocals are rough and alien, like after decades of silence – but at the same time gripping in his subliminal ire. The hooks implant themselves in your lobes after the first playthrough, as stubborn as termites in a rotten tree, hollow you out, may yet wrest a tear or two from your eye – would not the bone-dry sound swallow them up in the same instant.
Lizardmen are:
Nikki – Vocals/Guitar
Tobias – Drums
Niklas – Bass
Lizardmen, Cold Blooded Blues (2016)
Lizardmen at StoneFree Records
StoneFree Records on Thee Facebooks
Tags: Cold Blooded Blues, Germany, Lizardmen, Lizardmen Cold Blooded Blues, Osnabrück, StoneFree Records
