Review SMOKING SNAKES ‘Danger Zone’

Amongst other things, Sweden’s second largest city, Gothenburg, is known for a vivid music scene with Scandinavian death metal having a s very solid homebase. Next to that, hard rocking music with a good sense for melodies hails from the Swedish west coast too.

One of the bands ´that dig more this kind of music are Smoking Snakes. The music of these four passionists refers to the 80s melodic metal days when bands like Dokken, Ratt and other were heading towards a first peak.

Smoking Snakes was founded in 2022 and created some first attention through a self-published demo. After having inked a deal with Frontiers Music nothing could block the guys from working on their first studio album.

‘Danger Zone’ is the title of Smoking Snakes’ debut album, a hard rocking longplayer that features eleven songs. I mentioned already the musical imprint of Brett, Andy, Stan and Leo and it is the opener ‘Angels Calling’ that mirrors those right away. What reaches your ears is powerful hard rock with some sleaze references. Guitar and melody are equally in focus which take full effect with songs like ‘Soul Survivor’; the first single. The thundering ‘Restless and Wild’, which has nothing to do with the Accept classic, is another furious moment but what also comes to surface are the vocals that are held rough but also come a bit one-dimensional.

Even with good songs like ‘There is no Tomorrow’ and ‘We are Alive’ it is the entirety of songs that doesn’t really create the real wow- effect. ‘Danger Zone’ is a solid album that entertains and faces the risk of getting absorbed by the huge amount of other releases that hit the shelves every week.