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BULLET Heading For The Top Black Lodge (2006)
Heading For The Top is Bullet's first full-length album. This Swedish band have been around since 2001 and have released a demo, Heavy Metal Highway” and an mcd, “Speeding In The Night”. They have played the majority of their live gigs in Sweden, as well as Holland's Heavy Metal Maniacs festival.
From my first listen to Heading For The Top it was obvious that they are very similar to AC/DC and their album title echoes AC/DC's “It's A. Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock N Roll)”. It's good old rock music. Bullet are a fun band, but not particularly original.
They are close enough to AC/DC's sound to be a cover band, even Hell Hofer's vocals are similar to Brian Johnson's and the title track even cheekily borrows the guitar sound of AC/DC's For Those About To Rock (We Salute You) Taken from the album Who Made Who. On the plus side they are at least able to play – they are a good rock band with catchy riffs and great solos. If they are a “cover band”, at least they do it well.
I think that their career as recording artists may be quite limited unless they change their style somewhat, since it's been done before and they don't seem to have anything new to offer, and it is a long way to the top.
Their saving grace may be their live performance - if they are able to inject an audience with the same energy that is evident on the album, they may have a career ahead of them as gigging artists. Stranger things have happened, such as the success of Twisted Sister, who began as a spoof band!
I imagine Bullet would be worth seeing, and if you can't afford to see AC/DC but get the chance to see Bullet, why not go along? You'd probably have a good evening.
If you don't take it too seriously, Heading For the Top is a good quality, fun album. The last track on the album is Bang Your Head – and, yes, I certainly will if they play near me anytime soon!
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Review by Amanda Hyne
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