ROLLERBALL: Submarine

Produced by Dave Talon, Luke Earthling and Jeff Lovejoy

Released: 2009

It'd been a long time since I'd heard anything from Rollerball, so to say that I was pleased to receive their new album is a bit of an understatement. Long time veterans of Australia's first wave of the retro rock movement, they seemed to have dropped off the map for a while after Oversize came out almost five years ago. I was looking forward to some of their fantastically heavy-riffing rock once again, and Submarine definitely did not disappoint.

When the title track ripped loose with the exact same riff as The Hanging Tree's "Free Ride" (one of the best songs by one of the best Sydney bands of the 90s) I just knew this was going to rule. Submarine is nothing less than a thoroughly enjoyable, truly rock-worthy collection of big groovy psychedelic stoner rock, acid blues and biker metal. The band's influences are all over this: "We Always Slide" steals part of its riff from Blue Öyster Cult's "Divine Wind" and elsewhere you can hear Kyuss, AC/DC, early Led Zeppelin and... is that Canned Heat in there somewhere? But this matters not. Because this is rock, raw and honest, where originality takes a backseat to honesty and heart. And this isn't just shameless regurgitation like Jet or the massively over-rated Wolfmother; listening to Submarine you realise how much of a shame it is that those two bands have been elevated to Aussie rock royalty while the Rollerballs of the world plug away in relative obscurity while doing pretty much the same thing only much better. Why do we need Jet when Rollerball can deliver punchy radio rock anthems like "B-Ray Boogie" and "Seasoar" and "Tame Existence" wanders around in 70s proto-prog wonderland like Wolfmother only dream they can. Dave Talon unleashes the sort of riffs that Malcolm Young or Jimmy Page would envy with a huge fat guitar tone that either of them would die for and Tenpin Bolan's versatile vocals shift gears through melodic croon to raw rocking blues growl to a falsetto without a stretch, and with "Never a Rodeo" they have concocted an immense stoner epic that Josh Homme would be proud to call his own.

Submarine is a fantastic rock album. If you like fantastic rock albums, you must have this.

1. Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
2. Submarine
3. Seasoar
4. Youth Ballad (Back to Hell)
5. Your Lullaby
6. We Always Slide
7. The Devil's Reprise
8. Run Aground
9. Tame Existence
10. B-Ray Boogie
11. Never A Rodeo

Rating: 98%