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Texas Hippie Coalition - Ride On

By Daniel King - Posted on 16/10/14

Texas Hippie Coalition are a 'red dirt' metal band from Denison, Texas. Comprised of four members, Big Dad Ritch, John Exall, Cord Pool & Timmy Braun, they have just released their fourth studio album 'Ride On'. If you're familiar with the band already, there won't be many surprises in store for you here. The album is, again, based around a hard rock sound that really emphasises the vocals. There isn't much in the way of originality here, but that does not matter one little bit. 

When listening to an album, sometimes it is nice to get something that is completely unexpected. That does not happen here and that is very much a good thing. Texas Hippie Coalition are not about breaking boundaries, they are rock and riffs. Album opener El Diablo Rojo pretty much epitomises this. Hard rocking guitars, booming vocals and a chorus that makes you want to sing along. A true sign of what's to come and containing about as much Texan influence as can be forced into one song. Up next is Splinter, just as heavy and showing off the vocals of Big Dad Pritch even more. More catchiness throughout this song keeps you properly involved. This is certainly one of the highlights of the album, if only just for how catchy and easy to get into it is. An excellent solo towards the end really shows what these guys can do. "I'll make you bend and break" the vocals boom out and it really feels like it will. Monster In Me is up next, taking the tempo down a little. A good track though with a strong riff and some interesting vocal...noises. 

Go Pro comes up next and doesn't change the tempo too much, but what it does do is sound as much like a Bon Jovi song as it can at the start. Aside from the throaty vocals and heavy guitars. The vocals in this song are some of the strongest on the album and there is another great solo in here too. Really, this song emphasises the fact that these guys are in no way a one dimensional rock band. Up next, and to reinforce the variation that these guys have on show, is Rock Ain't Dead. If someone told me that Rob Zombie had written this track I would not have been surprised in the slightest. Of all the songs on the album I feel that this, despite being a good song, is the song least likely to convince people that rock ain't dead. The track that follows shows, to me, just how much there is left in rock. Bottom Of The Bottle is my personal highlight on this album and one of the best songs on an album of really good rock songs. This is probably as close to a ballad as these guys are ever going to write, but it does put on show the true extent of Big Dad Rich's vocals. It really feels that it's written from the heart, both musically and lyrically and is an excellent track with some Metallica influences shining through. Rubbins Racin returns us to the riff fuelled high octance pace of the start of the album. There is another solo in here, but this time it has more of a 'classic rock' style to it than the last couple. Ride On and Fire In The Hole start drawing the album to a close. Both are good tracks that just sum up Texas Hippie Coalition and everything they aim to create. I Am The End is the perfect ending to the album. It's a mixture of the riffs that we've come to know over the past 30 minutes or so and the big, booming and so very unique vocals that make Texas Hippie Coalition who they are. 

Overall, this could be the album that helps these guys make it over here. It's a really strong album with ten really good tracks on it. There are a couple of standout songs in there, but the quality does not drop below 'good' throughout the entire album. The real stand out feature of the band is the vocals. They are unlike anything else out there at the moment and the album is worth a listen just for them. 

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