ALBUM REVIEW: Stand Up, Forward, March! – Sister

Some bands just put a smile on your face. You seek solace in something which appears to be as comfortable as that pair of tracksuit bottoms which you wear every time you have a quiet night in at home, but which has seen better days and you’d be embarrassed to donate to the local charity shop. You, smile, you laugh, you see sunshine and rainbows. You’ve been listening to SISTER‘s Stand Up, Forward, March! 

SISTER do not claim to be reinventing the wheel. SISTER do not pepper their press releases with guff claiming to be forerunners of a hitherto unheard of sub-genre. Appetite For Destruction, HANOI ROCKS, HARDCORE SUPERSTAR, CINDERELLA’S Night Songs; you know the score. SISTER play no nonsense, good time, sleazy rock and they do it damned well. SISTER write songs which you’ll be singing for days and which your gran could hum along to. SISTER are fun.

For all that’s been written above, SISTER are not vapid, Sunset Strip pretty boys, looking at you POISON, their collective heart beats black and there’s an understated, punky substance in them there songs.

Carved In Stone does a passable impersonation of a tougher take on Mr Brownstone, before grafting on a chorus which JON BON JOVI  would sell body parts to have written. Therein lies the balancing act which SISTER have perfected throughout the rest of Stand Up, Forward, March! It’s tough enough to be metal, but each and every song has enough melody for almost any lover of a good tune to latch onto.

Carry On throws an acoustic guitar into the mix, providing an ideal counterpoint to the soaked-in-Jack-Daniels vocals of Jamie Anderson. Clever devils that they are, SISTER have written a song about pushing yourself forward through difficult times and made it so absurdly catchy that you’ll have a line or two from it wedged in your cranium for the next decade or two.

Find me a rock club where Endangered Species doesn’t incite a mass drunken singalong and I’ll show you a club that i’ll never set foot in. Ditto Dead Man’s Dirt, ditto Trail Of Destruction. You know the score.    

Some albums can be analysed and broken into their constituent parts. Some albums are best appreciated with the cynicism settings switched to ‘Off’. Some albums are just very,very good. This is one.  Some bands just put a smile on your face.   

Rating: 8/10

Stand up, Forward, March! is out now via Metal Blade Records.

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