Opening track "Rupert, I'm Home" is a foot stomping re-write of Mountain's classic "Never In My Life" complete with excellent Corky Laing inspired cowbell. Fast, hard n heavy is always a great way to start off an album. "Poco De Goya" thankfully has nothing to do with the soft rock sounds of Poco but plenty of early ZZ Top, James Gang and even more Mountain to maintain the boogie fever. "Lariats In Ruin" and "Bad Bad Operator" will make fans of the first Montrose album very happy. "Sir, You Realize…" starts off with a very cool bass/drum groove that's almost like Flipper doing "Running With The Devil" before switching gears into straight ahead heavy rock. "Exclamato" is more great ZZ Top riffery and the album winds up with the intense "Cat's Lament" (nice cowbell on this one, too).
The dueling guitars of Jesse Cohen and John Stendrini are loud and hard and the rhythm section of Tim Stys (bass) and Aaron Pagdon (drums) are tighter than duck's ass. It's a shame that Tim recently quit the band. I'm not sure what that means for the future of Federale. Hopefully they'll get a new bassist soon and start melting ear drums again very soon. This is a digital only release for the time being. Maybe if enough people buy it they can afford to release it on gatefold vinyl so I can deseed my next tre bag on it.
--Woody
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