Rule of the Bone
Self-Titled
Self-Released
Street: 02.28
Rule of the Bone = Bon Scott–era AC/DC + BTO + Fu Manchu
This is three brothers and a drummer who transplanted to SLC from Alaska in search of “more sunshine and a greater woman-to-man ratio.” You can’t make this up. Their debut is a loose goose stunna-strutta affair a la Priest and AC/DC with swagger and chutzpah. Maybe they cop their name from the 1995 Russell Banks novel (an overrated bildungsroman tale of a 14-year-old who ditches school to get chummy with a Rastafarian migrant worker), which explains those jiggers of adolescent rage broiling these tracks to the surface. I’m impressed by the unrepentant spirit of rocking and/or rolling into modernity. Where some contemporaries hold themselves to rigid genre confines, ROTB like to let their own blend of arctic funk flow beyond the rigamarole, made evident on the boogie-down middle section of “Fresh Off the Chain” or the “Night Prowler”–esque buildup on “Wrecking Ball.” It ain’t noise pollution, man. See ‘em live! –Dylan Chadwick