Hot Rod Frankie - Three Album Review
My Father Was A Madman (2014 Reissue)
Lost In Lynchland (2011 Reissue)
God, Gasoline & Me (2013)
Dim Records
Besides rockin’ the longships with Projekt Gleipner, producing sing-along Oi! anthems with The Headhunters and folk out of the box with Tills Döden Skiljer Oss At, Swedish Viking Rock legends Ultima Thule are also slappin’ the upright bass since 2006 with their psychobilly project Hot Rod Frankie. Until this day the band released four full-lengths; “My Father Was A Madman”, “Lost In Lynchland”, the cover album “Uncover * Discover * Recover” and their latest “God, Gasoline & Me”. Recently I received all three albums with purely Hot Rod Frankie ‘originals’, so I decided to merge all three into one monstrous review!
The band debuted in 2006 with “My Father Was A Madman”, their first effort that more recently got reissued on LP (2013) and CD (2014) by Dim Records. Funny thing about Ultima Thule side-projects that aren’t by definition Viking Rock, such as The Headhunters and the band in question, Hot Rod Frankie, is that you immediately hear it’s them. Because despite that the themes and sound differ, the vibe through the music and the significant vocals of Janne ‘Frankie’ Thörnblom remain the same. Definitely not a bad thing though, these guys know how to write and produce some proper tunes and easily stand their ground while exploring genres other than they initially gained fame with.
“My Father Was A Madman” contains twelve rockers with the usual ghoulish, b-movie themes you want to hear from your psychobilly band with the quality you would expect from a Swedish band. With hints of rockabilly influences, surfy guitars, a stompin’ rhythm section and a lot of samples from obscure movies this mob of madmen went all out on their debut album as if it was their first and last record. Perhaps that was the initial plan at the time, but now we’re in the ‘future’ we know better…
Because it took the band only two years to release their sophomore album, “Lost In Lynchland”. Unlike every other album that was originally released and/or reissued by Ultima Thule Records, but mainly Dim Records, “Lost In Lynchland” was originally released on CD in 2008 through the short lived Fast & Angry Records, who only released two albums by the Small Town Pimps prior to this album. Therefor it's pretty safe to say that Hot Rod Frankie literally ‘lynched’ the label with this release, but not due poor quality though!
Compared to the debut album, the band relays more on their own power instead of sound effects and movie samples and seem to have paced down a bit, making “Lost In Lynchland” more of an eerie themed, upbeat neo-rockabilly record than a pure psychobilly album. It’s not that I necessarily prefer this album over “My Father Was A Madman”, but songs like “Black Rider”, “Ain’t No Fire Burning” and especially “Highway 69”, are tracks I could listen to over and over again all night long!
After “Lost In Lynchland” the band released the cover album “Uncover * Discover * Recover” in 2011, performing songs of bands like Ghoultown, Muse, The Boys, Ramones and Cock Sparrer in their own ‘frankiebilly’ style before releasing their latest album “God, Gasoline & Me” in 2013 on both LP and digipak CD, making it the only album in this monstrous review that hasn’t been reissued (yet).
On “God, Gasoline & Me” the band presents eleven more electrified psycho tunes from the doctors laboratory and yet again these Vikings are rocking out in style with a horrifying mix of catchy, neo-rockabilly anthems and straight up psychotic stompers that could have easily been performed in London’s Klub Foot back in the early 80’s, an era Hot Rod Frankie seems highly influenced by to begin with. Bands like Frantic Flinstones, Long Tall Texans, Batmobile and The Klingonz come to mind while listening to “My Father Was A Madman”, “Lost In Lynchland” and “God, Gasoline & Me”. Exactly the type ‘billy’ I prefer most!
