Hognose

Longhandle (Arclight)
by Craig Regala

To open the damn thing up and look at it, you’d think these guys were interested in dope, guns, and fucking in the streets. To listen to the record is to confirm these suspicions. Using Southern kickass as the fertile field it is, these guys rock all over the kickass terrain. Pulling thunder grooves, suckerpunch riffage, rolling drawl growls, creeping kingsnake tempos, warm-toned metal bait’n’switch with nods to ZZ Top, Thin Lizzy, Monster Magnet, Cactus, Rose Tattoo, Clutch, Dust, Nazareth, and, well, pretty much everyone else a smart fella’d wag their head at.

The Arclight Label/Republic Studio’s team seems to have some kinda aesthetic, and it’s a rock one. Speedloader, Superheavygoatass, Amplified Heat, and Hognose all work with’m and have flexible hot rhythm sections versed in 50 years of rock and roll and the churning cultural cauldron that heaved it up. This is a good way to be, especially when you have guitaring not scared of laying back and into the groove, or tripling the tempo, peeling a lead, and then cutting the power boogie sideways for a bridge.

Catch these guys on stage somewhere: Word is it’s a gen-u-wine ass-peeler of an hour. If you can grapple with Nashville Pussy, Grand Magus, Beaten Back To Pure, Orange Goblin, Amps II Eleven, or the Fu Manchu/High On Fire/Clutch tour, you oughta roll in the dirt with this.
(www.arclightrecords.com)