The era of Rock N’ Roll has been dead for a long time. In fact, ever since they found out that hairspray has been a deciding factor in the removal of ozone, its been just slowly sliding into a golden memory. Until now. The days of actually knowing how to do more than play a simple power chord pattern has given way to a true Rock band: MACH 22. These guys are as fast as their name, with sweet, sweet crunch, fried chicken-tasty licks, and some energy to spare! Their new album, Sweet Talk Intervention, is a glorious throwback to bands like King’s X, Living Colour, Extreme, and just a little bit of GNR.

Starting from just the packaging, you know you’re in for a wild ride: the artwork is a gorgeous palette depicting a sinful looking mouth that has been up to, what I can only assume, was some truly troublesome things. And those nails! Scandalous! The colors pop, as the reds just rev up the engine quite nicely, and it all ties back into that gritty rock sound. And there is TONS of that within the covers of this album. The opener,Constant Denier, is perfect. And then the album gets better from there.

Like I just said (pay attention guys! GOSH!), Constant Denier i sa perfect rock song. It’s close to Appetite for Destruction era GNR, but with more of the swagger of Living Colour. The combination of rock and jsut so much soul leads to a headbanging, fist pumping good time, and its just the first song! later into it, you have Stone Rose, which is a ballad reborn. From the phase shimmer, to the smooth lyrical delivery, I wish i smoked so I could have a lighter handy. The band doesn’t shy away from using unconventional (to modern “rock”) instrumentation, such as the sax, and it lends itself to a much fuller, rounded out song style. If you threw this album into rotation with an 80s play list, you could ask anyone to pick it out as a brand new record, they would be hard pressed to do it.

Pick up Sweet Talk Intervention on 5/06 on iTunes, Amazon Music, The Band Website, and Facebook.