Sticky Boys – Make Art

Sticky Boys. Now where do I start? I have never heard of this Parisian threesome before I listened to their latest and second album ‘Make Art‘. The French trio certainly do show their love and affection for all things Rock and Roll here, but it took several listens of the album to even get the slightest gist of what the hell was going on, and I still am not fully aware! What I can tell you is though……

‘Make Art‘ does indeed rock musically, and it rocks even harder in some places. The album opens up with a nice energetic rocking number ‘Mary Christmas’. The sounds are tight, simple and effective. ‘Bad Reputation’ is a heavier rocking affair and the best way to describe this one, is this could be the love child of Motorhead’s ‘Ace of Spades‘ and Van Halen. The energy continues and this is frantic hard riff work, complete with thunderous, pounding drums from Tom Bullot, who drives the album along very smoothly. The track ‘High Power Thunder‘ makes me think this could be an AC/DC title, and you do get classic old school eighties hard rock and roll here. There is a nice opening bass line from J.B. Chesnot, and the rock and roll grooves work well with Guitarist/Vocalist Alex Kourelis’ deep, gritty and gruff vocals. One of the top tracks on the album, ‘Mrs. Psycho‘ had lyrics that may have been a little lost to me, but it was a nice Rock and Roll number with lots of great melody. Bands like Motley Crue and Kiss spring to mind listening to this track.

Being a rock and roll band, the clichés are all there on this album. Songs about sex and women, drugs and a hell of a lot of rock and roll. ‘Party Time‘ is what is says, a fun and frantic party song with lyrics such as “Time to go and get High, It’s Party time”, I’m sure this would be a great crowd pleaser done live! A huge anthemic chorus fills rocking number ‘Future In Your Hands’, with a slight punk element at times through this one. The chorus is one to sing along to, with nice melodies and riff work. It is a simple and effective formula.

Sex is the theme for tracks ‘Love on the Line’ and ‘Juicy Lucy’, with the latter having lyrics such as “We’re the cream, be the eggs”, I just found it a bit bizarre but It did make me laugh though. The album finishes with title track ‘Make Art’ which is another highlight. There is some keyboard gently mellowing in the background here. It ends on a positive note of what I think is about trying to make it in music and doing what you want to do, even if you never fulfil all your dreams or what you thought the music business was all about. The song does inspire to some degree and there is some nice guitar work here, great solid rhythms and interplay between the musicians.

The Sticky Boys press images I received may make them look like convicts who have escaped from an institution, and although ‘Making Art’ isn’t the most groundbreaking album and certainly isn’t anything new, what you do get is an album that is colourful, bizarre, full of rock and roll music and clichés, but in a fun way. It did make me smile, if some of the lyrics lost me a little bit. Really nice effort Boys.

Track List:
1. Mary Christmas
2. Bad Reputation
3. High Power Thunder
4. Mrs. Psycho
5. Uncle Rock
6. Party Time
7. The Future In Your Hands
8. Love On The Line
9. The Game Is Over
10. Juicy Lucy
11. Make Art

Make Art is available now via Listenable Records

Sticky Boys are:
Alex Kourelis – Guitars/Vocals
J.-B. Chesnot – Bass/Vocals
Tom Bullot – Drums/Vocals

Please visit Sticky Boys at:
www.stickyboys.eu/
fr-fr.facebook.com/stickyboys
twitter.com/stickyboys