Band:	Boothill Regulators
Album:	Degradation Of The West
Style:	Rock
Release date:	2012

01. Violence
02. Devil's Blood
03. List Of Names
04. Brand New Whore
05. Black Label
06. 1885
07. Sad Medicine
08. Song Of Dale
09. Highwaymen
10. We Ride
11. Good Shepherd
12. I Am The One

When I read the description of this album I got pretty excited. Finnish southern rock/metal? Sounds promising and different enough.

Too bad it isn't, though. Southern rock/metal is kickass, and Finns can be passable as a people and all, I just expected the southerness here to be mixed in with, I don't know... Jari and stuff. Like, southern twangs and bar fights mixed with sweeping majestic solos with lyrics about stars and snow and whatnot.

That's not what you get from this. This is straight up southern rock with a Finnish accent that happens to crank out some metal every now and again.

Can't be too disappointed though, because the riffs and tunes here are, for the most part, excellent. It's standard southern rocky metal done properly.

I just half expected this to be that soundtrack we've all been waiting for; the one for those days when you're riding mooseback through a southwestern desert, tipping your traditional Finnish cap at tumbleweeds and saying "hei thar kumppani, yahg?" at them.

When all is said and done it's more of a soundtrack for when you're riding a regular old American horse through a regular old desert tipping your regular old cowboy hat at shit and saying "yahg, yahg, yahg."

Which can be great, don't get me wrong. And they do it right here, no doubt about that. It's just not the most unique sounding stuff.

...That, and the vocals are pretty fucking bad. Like, 90 percent of the time. Seems like he was aiming for Danzig's style, but settled more for a bleating moose in the end. But I like the dude's pluckiness. He just keeps going, and going, and going despite all of the natural obstacles to making him stop (like losing his pitch every other note). After a while I just kind of accepted it.

Overall, it's all worth a quick check out. For the riffs, man. The riffs.