Tastes Like Rock Magazine

The Return Of The Bearded Brethren is an ten song love letter to the best parts of 70's rock! Big sound that rides the line between rock and metal, a whiskey soaked flair that only the best Southern Rock has... well, had before Southern Rock became Hard Country; which is definitely not the case on this album. Grifter, a three piece outfit from Britain has nailed a sound that, as stated, calls forth all the best 70's hard rock brought to the world; but they are far from a tribute band. You're not finding a Skynyrd clone here. The British trio resurrects all that is great about 70's rock, but don't rip it off. Their instrumentation as a group is solid, it's guitar driven, but doesn't smother the bass or the drums; the trio is a bonafide unit, without any lead singer/guitarist syndrome bleeding into the compositions and performance. Whiskey soaked grit fills all aspects of each song, vocals and instruments, and that is good! So many that try for this type of sound end up sounding like an old crank style record player turned too fast on a warped piece of vinyl; there is none, repeat, none of that here. Vocals are gritty, not metal gritty, hard driving rock gritty; think a mix of Michael Poulsen from Volbeat and Brian Johnson from AC/DC, but closer to Poulsen's timbre.