Charles in the Kitchen
s/t

Swiss band Charles in the Kitchen is a band that was formed in 2011 with the purpose of doing one show playing covers in a kitchen. But as you can imagine it didn’t stop there as they have now put together this self-titled album and released it for our listening pleasure. The nutritional facts of this release is not something to brag about, it will give you an overdose of testosterone and all the vitamin A needed for a day. Pretty funny cover art though and 3 % manliness is added for good measure.

Musically it is testosterone aided hard rock music with plenty of energy and absolutely no fresh thinking or new ideas, isn’t that what traditional rock is all about? Typical rock singer, typical rock production, typical rock songs, there is nothing atypical at all in this album. A dozen tracks on the album and they show the usual variation, meaning that the album isn’t particularly varied but is helped by having a relatively short playing time. Not much else to say about what we get here really, it is a typical hard rock album made from the most commonly used recipe.

What to say really, it is hard to write about albums like this as they don’t really make you think, they don’t make you stop in your stride and take notice, they are not awful or horrible, they are just good and nothing else. I can listen to and enjoy this album for a while, there are many good songs on it and you can play through it once without getting bored with it – it tends to feel repetitive when you have heard it a few times so I guess you have to listen to it something like once a month or so for it to remain interesting for a longer period of time. I think all of those rock fans that hate change and want everything to sound alike will enjoy this album very much, I have nothing bad to say about it but I feel finished with it now.

I think it is good but forgetful and the only reason you possibly would recall this album/band when they release their second album is their name – that and the cover art shows that they can think a bit differently too bad they don’t apply that train of thought to the music as well. The best track I My Own Highway that is pretty catchy and amusing, the song I Want to go to a Gay Bar has a funny name but it might scare off the homophobes that probably are in a vast majority amongst the fans of this genre. I think that this is a good album, nothing else to say about it really as it doesn’t really make that much of an impression on me.

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