SILENT JACK – Play The Game (2015)

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British hard rockers SILENT JACK may have born in the wrong place & time, but honestly, I don’t care. Because after listening their debut “Play The Game” (released today, Sept. 30) you can say it does not matter where you come from if you play from heart (and you play really well).

Growing up in the mid ’80s and loving rock n roll it was pretty impossible not be in the thrall of – and enthralled by – bands like Motley Crüe, Cinderella, Poison, etc. But it wasn’t just the bands that made it really big (and Guns n Roses probably made it biggest of all), there was a plethora of bands who were on the underground.
Bands like Dangerous Toys, Johnny Crash, and countless more, who if the mega bands were off in their private jets sniffing cocaine at 30,000 feet off the chest of a groupie (unless countless books on the era have lied to me), were content to play some fleapit somewhere having a great time and getting drunk on some cheap moonshine.

As time has gone by its become fashionable to say all the music of this era was shit (it wasn’t) and lazy, crap journalists tell you that with one swing of his chords Kurt Cobain ended it all (he didn’t).
Sleazy hard rock – as it’s now known – was and is fun, and in a downright miserable world right now, not every piece of music has to reflect the world around us. There’s surely still room for a band who reckons they’d fight anyone who came between them and their whiskey.

Step forward Silent Jack.
These guys are from Birmingham, UK, but they sound as L.A. natives 30 years ago. And they sound darn fine.
They have been together six years but you’d guess they’ve waited a lot longer to record these songs, and it paid its dividends in terms of quality and polish.

The album starts in absolutely gleeful manner with ‘Hellride’; instant hooks, with a sleazy solo and the classic bass-led breakdown. Let’s not forget the fair smattering of gang vocals. The party is started, and from there on in “Play The Game” happily conforms to every single thing you’d want it to, it’s sleazyer than an eighty year old woman in stockings and suspenders and twice as dirty.
The title track is a real swaggering affair, ‘Whisky In Me’ adds a lot of groove, and ‘Love Machine’ (not a WASP cover) manages to not half sound like The Almighty’s Blood, Fire And Love (there’s very few bigger compliments than this).

‘Midnight Ride’ is a street race rocker in the Motley vein, while ‘I Am The Law’ brings it all down a notch, at least for the intro, before the thick, dirty riff kicks in. ‘Pretty Poison’ is pure ’80s Sunset Strip hair metal, then ‘Highway Man’ is perhaps the best written song on the record with a melodic rock essence full of substance.
We have a big ballad, ‘Turn Away’ that would get lighters in the air if lighters were allowed, there’s a massive hook or two.

Also – and quite fabulously – there’s a song called ‘Too Many Women’ and if you think you can have this type of album without a dollop of sex then you don’t know this type of rock n roll.
Even better there’s a song with a harmonica opening as these albums almost had to have by law: “Outlaw” is bluesy and superb.
‘Love Bite’ throws us back to the 80’s territory again with a great guitar work resembling Slash’s finest moments, and we reach the last song on the CD with the bluesy ‘Make It Right’, featuring a quite original arrangement.

On “Play The Game” Silent Jack pay a homage to the greats yeah, but it’s more than that; it’s the sound of a band fulfilling its dreams. These guys may have born in UK but their hearts reincarnate from someone who lived & sweated the Sunset Blvd in 1987.
Rich Mason’s vocals are perfect for this genre, like a mix of a young Axl Rose and Vince Neil, Adam Carson’s lead work is sublime throughout – in both tone and execution – and we have in Dickie Spider (bass) and Scott Carson (drums) that kind of relentless chugging rhythm section typical from the ’80s (and not so easy to replicate).

If Ratt, Motley, Kiss, Black N Blue, Poison et all with their late ’80s albums once rocked your world, Silent Jack’s “Play The Game” is a must in your collection.

01 – Hellride
02 – Whisky & Me
03 – Play The Game
04 – Love Machine
05 – Midnight Ride
06 – I Am The Law
07 – Pretty Poison
08 – Turn Away
09 – Highway Man
10 – Too Many Women
11 – Outlaw
12 – Love Bite
13 – Make It Right

Rich ‘Stitch’ Mason – Vocals, Guitar
Adam Carson – Lead Guitar
Dickie Spider – Bass
Scott Carson – Drums, Backing Vocals

BUY IT !
www.pledgemusic.com/projects/silentjack/exclusives
www.amazon.co.uk/Play-Game-Silent-Jack/dp/B014S6R5WM
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