Viking Skull
Doom, Gloom, Heartache & Whiskey
Powerage Records
03 November 2008

by Hugh Platt

While they might’ve started as a joke spin-off band from Corby bruisers, Raging Speedhorn, Viking Skull have long since mutated, growing strong following the patronage of one Bam Margera, and the recruitment of his brother, CKY sticksman Jess Margera, for tub-thumping duties. Doom, Gloom, Heartache & Whiskey, the band’s third album, finds them in as crude health as ever.

Safe in the knowledge that the right riff in the right place can have the same stopping power as a 12-gauge kneecapping, Viking Skull mostly stick to their trademark retro grooves and liquor-soaked lyrics. They might be as charming as a hobo’s hangover, but they’re also as intense as the special brew binge that precipitated it.

That’s not to say Doom, Gloom, Heartache & Whiskey doesn’t like to mix its musical drinks a bit. Roddy Stone’s growl, still sounding like he gargles sand and eats cigarettes, is perfect for shitkickers like ‘Hair Of The Dog’, but it also works with the Maiden-esque galloping guitars of ‘19 Swords’.

The straw-chewing yokel country intro of ‘Shot Down’ springs into a chainsaw-chug of gutter-guitars, soundtracking the Skull’s belief that the best way to get over your woman walking out on you is to sink shot after shot of sippin’ whiskey, before breaking the empty bottle over the first man who looks at you funny.

The band hasn’t forgotten to keep their tongues wedged in cheek though. The Tom-Waits-gone-bad chorus of ‘Drink’ – “we’re gonna drink / drink till we shit the bed” – is a honky-tonk anthem for pissheads everywhere.

Like their spiritual cousins Orange Goblin, the brute force / blunt object approach of Viking Skull is a perfect antidote to fret-wank metal everywhere. If it turns out that Lemmy isn’t actually immortal and Motörhead ever retire, then we’ve found someone ably positioned to step up and take their mantle as Britain’s Baddest Bastards.

5/6