lust for glory - blue idle

Lust For Glory

Blue Idle
RockMoor Records; 2014

3.5 out of 5

By Ethan Skelton

With guitars as thick as molasses and caked in fuzz come the hooligan rockers in Lust For Glory. Their craft is sexy, immature, and oh so heavy, but heavy like a slow moving rhino - not Metallica. Lust for Glory takes things in strange directions throughout their album Blue Idle via no real sense of segue, more just whatever the hell they feel like stomping next. Some of the tunes are borderline sludge rock and I hesitate to paint that in a good light. 

Overall, this album left some confusion and really just a lack of continuity for me. The guitar solo sections are whining and drunk sounding. Below this seems to always be some strange inclination toward jazz or blues on the drums. It’s all so different in style, but as original as it gets. If this is your cup of tea good luck finding the comparable. Lust For Glory is like a dementedly candid bum that emits strange fumes and acts like a disgruntled Black Keys. But you know what? They like it that way. I’d be gobbling grains of salt if it weren’t for that fact that Lust For Glory could give a damn and aren’t trying to impress anyone. That’s really what true art is about.

“Devils Inn” is a lurking and bluesy crawl that feels like Rob Zombie after some ZzzQuil. In contrast, the opening track “Just A Call” has quite a bit of energy but still that lo-fi drudgery of a tone. “Cold Mountain” eases up just a touch on the muddy distortion and keeps things on the up, introducing some sparing use of keyboard effects. The vocals slightly echo and sound like the commands of a dark general. “Superhero” has a great running riff in the beginning, but decays like a burnt out runner and ultimately finishes about 20 clicks slower and with a struggling solo. Blue Idle is groundbreaking material any way you slice it so pour yourself a tall one and see what you think.

For the most part, the lyrics are incoherent and the groove is jumbled or slow. And then, out of nowhere, will come a surge of big wave guitar, crashing or cutting and always accompanied with a mid range wash of cymbals. By album’s end even this method of strange becomes old hat. Blue Idle falls victim to the “can’t tell one song from the other” syndrome. This makes it much too easy for passive listening to take hold and that’s an artist’s enemy. But hey, Lust For Glory is a different breed and they call their own shots. To that, I show my respects.

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