Sound and Fury

(Rebel Youth)
By Martin Popoff

Couldn’t think of a more appropriate bill for Sound and Fury than its concurrent jaunt with Airbourne and Less Than Jake, this Toronto act offering some fresh sleaze to a scene dominated by ProTooled metalcore, retro- and neo-thrash bands. Also along the lines of Buckcherry juiced by a bit of Murderdolls/Wednesday 13, there’s also a punk integrity that leans it into Hanoi Rocks/New York Dolls terrain, due to the wild child vocal twang of Luke Metcalf, who steals the show, even if his propulsive, high-octane band is a hard good band to keep down. Indeed, Metcalf almost gets into Wolfmother and even Serj terrain, a personality-ascribing dimension to the band to be sure. Fave tracks are the riffier, AC/DC-ish ones like “Bad Touch,” which clangs like “Bad Boy Boogie,” Sound and Fury doing everything right from creating a raucous engine room to guitar tones – which vary, thoughtfully (“Hellhound” is mud-bound). Some of the lyrics a little self-consciously rawking, trying to make the sale, and there’s a bit too much playing to punk (they like the ’70s bands but it sounds ’90s). Still, if it all sounded like Angel City and Rose Tattoo and Krokus and those other guys, we’d be calling Sound and Fury a novelty act. There are way too many positive performances and decisions made to risk that dismissal.
(www.rebelyouthrecords.com)