CD REVIEW: LEIF ‘SNAKE’ SIXX – It’s All About The Riff

Shane | 20 March 2014 | Reply

CD REVIEW: LEIF ‘SNAKE’ SIXX – It’s All About The Riff
Snake Sixx Productions
March 2014
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
9.5/10

Snake Sixx has pulled together no less than 33 rock and metal legends from across Australia and far further afield, to perform an earth-shattering metal tribute to Australian music, and to the mighty riff in all it’s wondrous forms.

The roll call of players is as impressive as the track listing itself: Steve Priestly (Celtic Frost), Scott Griffin (L.A. Guns), Rick Rozz (Death/Massacre), Mick O’Shea (Dragon, Rose Tattoo, Billy Thorpe, Ian Moss), Skenie (The Poor), Paul Woseen (Screaming Jets), Wayne Campbell, Mick Burke, Joe Buttergeig & Steve Hughes (Mortal Sin), Mick Arnold & Steve King (Rose Tattoo), Johnathan Devoy (Melody Black), Stu Marshall (Empires Of Eden, Dungeon), Leeno Dee (Candy Harlots, Melody Black), and many more join forces with Sixx to tackle a mind boggling array of Aussie (and a Kiwi or two) classics.

AC/DC’s Let There Be Rock, led by Skenie is first up, followed by a truly moving take on Icehouse’s Great Southern Land. The chorus of Skyhooks’ Horror Movie doesn’t translate quite as well from bubbleglam to metal, though the song stands up pretty well as a whole – but INXS’s Don’t Change and The Divinyls Boys In Town, led by Virginia Lillye (Lillye and Peter Northcote Band) turn up the heat.

Gangajang’s Sounds Of Them is another that really works with the guitars and volume turned right up, as does The Radiators’ Coming Home, featuring Frozen Doberman’s Adam Marsh on vocals.

The album goes on with riff-filled takes on The Angels, an excellent metallic take on Rose Tattoo’s Nice Boys (featuring razor blade vocals from Devoy and killer guitar from Sixx and king, and squealing slide from Arnold), Split Enz, Midnight Oils, and even The Atlantics surfstramental Bombora and The Church’s smash Under The Milky Way.

It’s a mightily gargantuan undertaking, one that took Sixx around the world and to the brink of death over the two years he took to pull all the elements together, and the end result is just absolutely massive.

You can track the evolution of the record with an absolute overload of interviews and studio footage on a bonus DVD, which really shows what a labour of love this project was. The man has put not only time and money into the project, but his heart and soul – and it shows in the packaging (though someone should have spellchecked the text on the cover, really), the extras (in addition to the DVD’s behind the scenes bits, there’s the official filmclip for Great Southern Land, and the CD has a bonus industrial mix of that song as well) and most importantly, the music.

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