Return Of El Diablo

The instrumental section of Los Bastardos Finlandeses surely shares over decades of active grappling in the Finnish rock scene. All the guys have a past with some degrees of rock n’ roll and Los Bastardos is in a way, Finland’s ultimate answer to Motörhead. The boogie is there as drummer El Grande Bastardo shares many similarities with Phil “Philthy Animal Taylor, while Welsh-born Singer/Guitarist El Taff Bastardo has the Lemmy-type hoarse shout very much under control and nicely works the crowd into a rock n’ roll-frenzy. This is balls out rocking to those looking for a killing time.

Red Eyed Rock ‘n’ Roller opens the album with a blast, and the production reveals its organic quality. The vocals are slightly up on the surface but when the guitars crank it up it’s pure pandemonium and boogieness! Broken Down Mojo and White Knuckles flirt more with mid-tempo grooves and do a good job with them. Dizzy Miss Mess is channelling AC/DC on Girls Got Rhythm very heavily and is thus probably my favourite song off of the album. The following Gung! Ho!! is a rollicking rocker as well that hopefully will not leave you overloaded with suckiness. Flying Bottle and Bravado (no, not a Rush-cover) possess some excellent riffs which get those airguitars swinging.

Overall, Return Of El Diablo is free of ballads or overtly slow moments to compliment the hard and fast attitude. Anyone looking for a band not really inventing anything original but doing fast, no frills heavy rock n' rolling that will carry on into the future, go for Los Bastardos Finlandeses!