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ARTICLES Multiball Magazine spring 1999 The Missoula Independant The
Willamette Week The
Willamette Week eXotic Magazine REVIEWS Multiball MagaZine The
Final Word Hitlist SITE MAP Discography |
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ARTICLES Multiball Magazine spring 1999 The Missoula Independant The
Willamette Week The
Willamette Week eXotic Magazine REVIEWS Multiball MagaZine The
Final Word Hitlist SITE MAP Discography |
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REVIEWS Fireballs
of Freedom Finally, my long-awaited shipment of pogomonyrmex had arrived. Vials of "bearded ants" had been carefully emptied into the farm's main silo. With their master plan for Ant Village domination just beginning to unfold, every action so exquisitely intricate, the colony worked in a unison befitting of a single organism. I turned the stereo on. As my eyes were sending these bizarre worker ant images to my brain ("Where will they bury the dead?" my brain responded), my ears were transmitting an equivalently complex wall of sound, just as intricate and as fearsome as the community sealed in plastic. Perhaps more so. We too will dominate, the Fireballs of Freedom assured the ants. Total Fucking Blowout IS blowing my mind. It is blowing their minds, those tiny black creatures lost in endless toil, suddenly confronted with the sounds of raging spirit and limitless, boundless possibility. With a sustained edge that captures for the first time that secret ingredient of a live FOF show, TFB is light years beyond any fo the Fireballs' previous recordings. In an almost epic way, TFB pushes the Fireballs' signature brand of driven classic rock psychedelia to a synergy of noise and energy necessary to justify the record's title. Though our boys did suffer some doubt on their path of righteousness. In a conversation with Art Chantry, who did the cover design, Fireball Kelly expressed some trepidation about calling the record Total Fucking Blowout. Apparently some of the boys were worried about what their mothers would think. The unassuming moniker "Total Blowout" was considered. Chantry's response: "Sure, if you want to be a total fucking pussy..." So, with the threat of derailment safely behing them, I can say for damn sure there's nothing pussy in the glowing sphere of Fireball influence, a dirty gritty basement dwelling reality where beer-fueled rock rages on through till the a.m. hours This week Rock Pinball City will be cutting the ribbon for its brand new, state of the art, max-velo subway system, the F.O.F. Express. Lesser civilizations have problems withstanding the Fireballs social heat. My kingdom of ants lies in ruin. --Brinda Coleman Multiball magaZine (#20)
Fireballs
of Freedom Grunge lives! I'm not talking about the Nevermind Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains explosion of the early Nineties, but about the sound that built Seattle. Sub Pop style crazy punk music in the vein of Mudhoney. This band now calls Oregon home after conquering Missoulla, Montana, but originally came from Fargo, North Dakota! This is the band's second CD (11 songs, 39 minutes) since forming 10 years ago. The music is your basic guitar punk rock with a huge Seventies metal influence, while the vocals are crazy Mudhoney style screams. Highlights include the southern jam "Ris of the New South" complete with slide guitar and "The Halls of Sonic Splendor" which features a huge early Kiss feel. If you like the Seattle scene or are interested in hearing Seventies metal done punk style than this is your band. While I couldn't hear this day in and day out it has it's points. Be sure to check the back for concert dates to catch this band live in June.Grunge lives! I'm not talking about the Nevermind Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains explosion of the early Nineties, but about the sound that built Seattle. Sub Pop style crazy punk music in the vein of Mudhoney. This band now calls Oregon home after conquering Missoulla, Montana, but originally came from Fargo, North Dakota! This is the band's second CD (11 songs, 39 minutes) since forming 10 years ago. The music is your basic guitar punk rock with a huge Seventies metal influence, while the vocals are crazy Mudhoney style screams. Highlights include the southern jam "Ris of the New South" complete with slide guitar and "The Halls of Sonic Splendor" which features a huge early Kiss feel. If you like the Seattle scene or are interested in hearing Seventies metal done punk style than this is your band. While I couldn't hear this day in and day out it has it's points. Be sure to check the back for concert dates to catch this band live in June. --??? The Final Word (May 2000) Fireballs
of Freedom Supercharged bluesy punk rock perfect for the Estrus lineup. The FIREBALLS fit nicely with bands like the QUADRAJETS and LORD HIGH FIXERS. Highly Recommendable from start to finish. --JC Hitlist
Fireballs
of Freedom THE SUPER-CHARGED Fireballs of Freedom sound as if they jumped in H.G. Wells' time machine and resurrected the dead souls of '70s monster rockers MC5 and '90s Phil Spector-loving proto-punkers, the Devil Dogs. Then they gulped down a handful of Black Beauties, plugged into their Marshall amps and transported themselves back to the dreary Pacific Northwest circa 1999, stealing the best attributes from both. These novice Portland rocket scientists have exploded on the scene like a homemade basement distillery with too much fire underneath and too much crank hovering above. What a long, strange trip it's been indeed for the Fireballs. It's hard to fathom these guys originally coming together in the sleepy, rolling hills of dullsville Montana, of all places. There ain't no hippy-dippy, sleepy-eyed altrock shoegazing going on here. This is eye-pokin' punk rock fury that would send Curly Stooge straight to the moshpit hell-bent on slapstick deconstruction. The Fireballs deliver raw, loose, savage and psychotic rock-and-roll that embraces fast cars ("Drag" and "Ten Lanes to Chinatown"), jaded urban belligerence ("Street Smart" and "Glass Jaw") and grunge rock hedonism ("Man's Rock" and "Red Carpet"). Watch out girls--these self-loving, chauvinistic fashion geeks are heading to a town near you. --Ron Bally
Fireballs
of Freedom Well, as you might have guessed from the title, this is wild and crazy ROCK AND ROLL music. Hot dog! Think really fast drums. Think squealing guitars. Think high-pitched screaming singer. Think AC/DC with a little bit of the glam-trashiness of Aerosmith thrown in. Then forget about that and think alterna-kids doing campy-but-rocking spoofs of AC/DC and Aerosmith. Then forget that and think ROCK AND FUCKING ROLL. Are you there yet? Okay. It's dirty, nasty, loud, fast and goofy. Perfect. Now where are my pleather pants?
Fireballs
of Freedom YES!!! Finally another CD of dirty, gritty, ballsy rawk n' roll worthy of the momentum in the scene created by the likes of SPEEDEALER, ZEKE, and THE SUPERSUCKERS. This isn't some tired and half hearted attempt to combine punk with classic hard rock like most bands of this ilk, instead this is kick-out-the-jams-and-burn-the-house-down rock fury! Delivered with the passion of Ted Nugent on a big game hunt and the reckless abandon of a drunk driver in the Indianapolis 500. FIREBALLS OF FREEDOM have distanced themselves from the pack instantly. Sometimes the sound like MC5 reincarnated and other times they sound like they have been smoking NAZARETH albums in their crack pipe, but at no time do they lose their edge... and edge that is ragged, rusty and blood stained. Listening to this CD is like having Jack Nicholson lean into your face and scream, "You say you want punk rock? YOU CAN'T HANDLE PUNK ROCK!" and then smack you upside the head. On a scale of one to damn, this is a hell, yeah! --Jeb Branin
Fireballs of Freedom/Lopez-split EP Them LOPEZ folks have been talkin' about this split for years, and it's well worth the wait. A fine FIREBALLS bluesy rockin' number, I got a Line on You, blesses this rockin' disc. LOPEZ blasts off with a high speed Stoopit song, and then delivers one of their finest, 1-800-666-FUKK. If you like rock-n-fucckin-roll, do yourself a favor and check out this split and check these bands out live. (HM) Maximum Rock and Roll (Dirtnap,
PO Box 21249, Seattle, WA 98111)
Kerrang
#793 Scary noiseniks offer an ideal soundtrack for whippet strangeling. There's something terribly wrong with the Fireballs of Freedom, something dark within their collective psyche. It's difficult to put your finger on exactly what it is, save to say they're not very well in the head. No one in their right mind is quite this intense. Similarly affected artists include David Yow (dribbling Jesus Lizard hellbilly) and Jon Spencer (dead-eyed psychotic guitar-strangler), but the four fireballs uniquely blend their overpowering passion with the kind of twisted psychedelia you can surely only attain with a head full of Altamont acid. Consequently,the frenzied garbles of 'Dirtbox,' fearsome plummets of 'Sick Again' and manacing tirades of 'Sweat Vest' will effortlessly batter you into abject submission. Pure skull shattering bliss. Ian Fortnam KKKKK classic KKKK blinding KKK good KK average K
bollocks
Alternative
Press ***** Exactly what the title implies The hell? Track is such an obnoxious, punk-brat-roller-coaster ride of flying chords, hootin' and sheer speed that I'm having trouble believing the title "Don't Take My Freedom," is anything more than a 30-year joke on the MC-5. Because if there is any similarity between "punk rock" the MC-5 used to play and the "punk rock" Portland Oregon's Fireballs spray, then it's loud electric guitars, Luke VonMohrs all-over-the-kit drumming and precious little else. Turn off the stereo after the opening track. Take a nap. Evacuate your bowels. Meditate. Do what you must do to prepare for track two,"Dirtbox," which is even more caustic and alarming than the opener. The combination of speedy chording and heavy riffs (all treble and no downtuning by the way) is astounding here. This is the one that had some girl in a little Utah club threatening the band with a pool cue and screaming "Turn it down!!" Like trying to hold back the ocean with a broom, she was. On to track three....Never mind, I'm exausted.While the Fireballs of Freedom will likely garner comparisons to the sadly-to-be-defunct Quadrajets, they have honed in on a sound so adrenelized it threatens to blow it's arteries at any given juncture. Even their version of Pink Floyd's "Take Up Thy Stethescope And Walk" runs at double-Black-Flag time. And that is the only problem I see here:Too much, too fast. Taken individually, every song is a gem that'll raise your blood pressure and leave you wondering where the engineer was buried. Taken as a whole, well, you die, too. It's that simple-and good. John Pecorelli |
