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When you think of hard drinking, metal loving SOB’s, Provo, Utah isn’t the first place that your mind goes to.  After listening to Little Black Horse, Where Are You Going with Your Dead Rider? by God’s Revolver, it makes me wonder what the hell is going on there.  Is Provo, Utah a punk/blues/metal oasis in the middle of the Mormon state?  Or are God’s Revolver an aberration that shouldn’t exist?  Either way, they do exist and their first album is like a kick to the head that makes you want to shoot whiskey while smoking a pack of cigarettes after getting a tattoo in a seedy shop.

The quintet of Reid Rouse, Jon Larsen, Adam Loucks, Trey Gardner and Elliot Secrist bang out a solid CD of punk and blues metal.  You get the feeling that these guys are living the songs they sing about; playing in crap hole bars, drinking too much cheap liquor and scoring with easy women.  It’s dirty, gritty music you don’t find too often any more.  They are the best southern rock bad to come along in a long time.

When I first listened to Little Black Horse, Where Are You Going with Your Dead Rider?, I thought if they ever get the Preacher series off the ground, this band has to contribute to the soundtrack.  If you read the books, playing this CD in the background will set the appropriate mood.  “The Long and Lonely Ride to Hell” opens the album with a roadhouse blues riff before lead singer Reid Rouse opens up and let’s loose.  From there God’s Revolver takes us on a road trip to hell with grinding guitars and driving rhythms. 

“Iron F***” carries the band’s credo; “Die Young, Live Fast.” “Boxes Done Buried” slows things down a bit so you can catch your breath.  It’s a backwater blues rock track that brings images of drunken bikers falling off bar stools at 2 in the morning before being kicked out for the night.  “Roca Del Desierto” closes out the disc with a light single guitar being quietly plucked before the band jumps in like freight train dangerously careening down the tracks. 

Little Black Horse, Where Are You Going with Your Dead Rider? is an awesome mix of blues and metal.  If Motorhead had started in Mississippi instead of England, they would be God’s Revolver.  These five guys don’t play around.  They got what it takes to make as one of the best metal bands working today.  Little Black Horse is a long hard road to travel but it’s worth every step.

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