Gunjack
Totally Insane

Jack with the gun is known from Tekken 3, a cybernetic fighter with much power but a bit slow moving. Gunjack is an Italian band with the same sense; powerful but quite slow when it comes to personality. This album called Totally Insane is their debut album and it has a title that promises much, the cover is quite okay as well while the logo isn’t too impressive. The music is about as about as retro as it is to play Tekken 3 today, it is one more of those bands that doesn’t create music but rather emulate their heroes.

An album that is difficult to describe without bringing in the ace of spades of hoarse vocals, Motörhead, I think Motörhead is a good band to use as description of what you get to hear. The vocals are similar and the style of music as well. A bit more powerful than Motörhead perhaps but it is the one band you will think of when hearing this album. And it feels long, as the variation is sparse and there are quite a few songs, it may be short in minutes but feels like an eternity to play through. The production may be decent and so on but the band has their eyes locked at the rear view mirror and not the road ahead making the journey quite boring.

Chockingly uninsane not the totally insane stuff we were promised by the title, it all feels like a quite ordinary album – like something of a Motörhead clone. The problem with bands that lacks their own ideas and just copies other bands is that they almost never seem to be as good as the bands they are copying. These Italians sure have some energy and passion but they lack the creativity to make their debut album more exciting than just another heavy rock album. And as the album is lacking stand out hit songs as well, it becomes even more difficult to really bother with it.

Killed by boredom, could be a title of this review or something else to that effect. Perhaps it may appeal to the fans of Motörhead or Lemmy, but as it lacks standout songs I have my doubts about that as well. Not bad enough to flush down the toilet but perhaps in the thrash, all I know is that chances are non-existent that I will play this album again. I think these guys will need some originality if they want to make something more relevant in the future.

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