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Instruction: Arthur Shepherd, Joseph Grillo (vocals, guitar); Tom Capone (guitar); Adam Marino (bass guitar); Ti Kreck (drums).
Additional personnel: Bob Ezrin (guitar, keyboards, percussion, background vocals); Thokcham P.K. Singh (sitar, tambour); Mark Robertson , Neel Hammond (violin); Gina Warnick (viola); Vanessa Freebairn-Smith (cello); Joey Klaparda, Matt O'Conner (percussion).
If you're deep into hard rock, you might remember when the band Warrior Soul urgently and rebelliously popped up in the '90s and promised to rescue rock & roll, bringing it back to the days when guitars still ran wild. It never happened. Record buyers wanted a tighter nihilism, Nirvana-style. There's a whiff of that around God Doesn't Care, the huge and threatening-to-go-ponderous-any-minute debut by Instruction. Just like lyricist Arty Shepherd says on "Three Stops Short of Dagenham," these boys are flooded with purpose. Tense and urgent like you wouldn't believe, you can taste the frustration these guys have suffered in the hard-rocking but ignored bands they served time in (Quicksand, Errortype: 11, and too many others to mention). With frontman Shepherd being such a dramatic powerhouse -- on the mic and with the pen -- it's easy to forget what a solid band is behind him, chugging and trudging, tighter than tight. Fans of Bob Ezrin (the Marshall amp-loving producer behind Kiss' Destroyer and every Alice Cooper album that mattered) will be more than happy with the fiery sound on the record, adding a black light poster, Trans Am Firebird decal feel to the album. He's brought back that old album flow too, making God Doesn't Care a better start-to-finish listen than a pick-and-choose download. Lyrically, Instruction have nothing do with the '70s. They're too introspective, too tortured for that. Tracks like "I'm Dead" borrow equally from U2 and the Cult while the awesome "Lean on You" shows they're well aware of Trent Reznor. For anyone not knee deep in the band's past lives, God Doesn't Care sounds too monolithic, too elaborate for a debut. It's like most bands' fourth album, when the players get over being weary and get back to rocking, just with that learned edge. If it's not the most approachable record -- any rock album that pulls out the sitars takes some time to get into -- that's just part of what makes it unique. This band roars and howls so uncompromisingly you have to wonder if it was some off-the-mark Creed comparison that landed them on a major label. God Doesn't Care is delicious proof that bands can still be developed by four hungry guys instead of promotion firms, and a rare find for sensitive headbangers, to boot. ~ David Jeffries
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