Just when you thought
that the whole garage scene had been played out and is running
on empty, along comes Lincoln, Nebraska's Brimstone Howl. They
keep it interesting with short, sharp bursts of scuzzed-out rock
delivered by a youthful crew that look like they stepped straight
outta the cornfields. There's nothing fancy or revolutionary
here, but that's the point. Good rock 'n' roll should be noisy,
testosterone fueled, come from the gutter and get under the skin
of those who don't know any better. Mission accomplished. If
memory serves me correctly, and it often doesn't, this is what
I wanted the last Mystery Girls record to sound like, but that
only disappointed-Guts of Steel doesn't. - Troy Brookins / Your
Flesh
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Even if you're sick
of garage rock, Brimstone Howl's toting enough punk and blues
along to keep things interesting. Perfectly crummy and lo-fi,
you know these players serve it up drunk and sweaty in Nebraska's
bars and house parties. Still, their raw sound is awfully tight.
It's a well-rehearsed crudeness, but never too practiced or careful.
What's the saying? Make a song. Work your song. Don't let your
song work you. The lyrics are great, too. Find yourself shouting
along, "Touch down, touch down, touch down, cyclone!"
or "I am a man, I am a man, M-A, M-A, M-A-N woo!" -
Marisa Demarco / Alibi
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Back in the 60's,
white boys discovered the blues and soon the Stones, Paul Butterfield
& The Dead were born. Fast forward 10 to 15 years later and
the youth culture started displaying a little more angst and
aggression and the punk movement was born with bands like The
Sex Pistols, The Damned and my personal fave, The Clash. Well
it seems as if this Nebraska foursome discovered both genres
of music at the same time and did everything possible to combine
the sound into their initial release, Guts of Steel. The end
result is a foot-stomping, ass-shaking, roof-rattling, 30-minute
sonic assault. - HearYa
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What Brimstone brings
to the table is the caustic intuitive playing of Iggy and the
Stooges with a '50s approach to the guitar solo -- imagine a
greaser's take on the garage revival of a few years ago. The
classic sound belies the age of the performers, but there is
a freshness there that keeps it from feeling rehashed. - Paul
Saitowitz / Press
Enterprise
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Equal parts Creedence
Clearwater Revival and the Damned, Nebraska's Brimstone Howl
play a tempestuous mix of swampy, blues rock and doom-laden punk.
On their first full-length album, "Guts of Steel",
this comes out in a dozen scorching blasts of rock backdraft.
- Uweekly
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Brimstone Howl really
went for everything catchy on this album, from guitar licks to
lyrics. Repetition is key on this album - they want it all to
stick to your brain. The result is a totally fun record, which
doesn't fall into the trap of 'We take ourselves too seriously.'
I mean, how could they with lyrics like 'I'm a cyclone boy/I'm
pretty tough/I do lots of things/and other stuff'? Throw in frantic
chants that sound like playground taunts, and it creates something
pretty fabulous. I also just wanna say that I heart the cover
of this record. Heart-heart-heart. I'm gushing, yeah. But it's
just so retro awesome - so my gushing gets sucked intro the retro-ness,
and I feel like one of those Beatlemania teenyboppers (one of
my secret aspirations). Appropriate, since they all look pretty
Beatle-y on the cover. So. Sum up. If you're thinking Sonics,
you're getting there. Add a sprinkle of Reigning Sound, nonsensical
lyrics, and a love for Almighty God, and you got Guts of Steel.
Fucking fab. - Rhea Dee / No
Wave
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Brimstone Howl's
new record, Guts of Steel, is a raw, fantastic, burst of dirty
rock/blues/punk. Engineered and produced by Dan Auerbach (you
know him from the Black Keys), this Nebraska band is another
reason to think the heartland is planning a revolution. - SixtyWatt
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Clocking in at just
under 34 minutes for 12 songs (none longer than 3 minutes 39
seconds), the record is the best rocker that Nebraska's produced
in many a year, taking influences from the first five decades
of rock 'n' roll and giving them a swift, raw kick (...) To me,
Brimstone Howl is a rock 'n' roll band -- no more, no less --
and a very, very good one. - L. Kent Wolgamott / JournalStar
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Songs like riff-happy
"Bad Seed" and the strutting "Cyclone Boy"
and "I'm a Man" conjure images of motorcycles and leather
jackets, Brando in The Wild Bunch, drag racing down Dodge Street
in a 50s-era Chevy. All shot in black-and-white. The nostalgia
continues through to the '70s, to punk bands like The New York
Dolls and The Stooges. -
Lazy-i
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