Black Bone Child

Black Bone Child

There's only minute variation to Black Bone Child's eponymous July debut, no smoke and mirrors, and little acoustic guitar to "Ask for Forgiveness." It's that grip-it-and-rip-it rock & roll, full-throttled and hollow-body-distorted, power riffs ripping the straight and narrow track laid out by this Austin duo. Donny James and Kenneth M. Hailing are about the heat "Going Down Slow," the chorused hooks singing "Ha Ha Hey Hey," the pent-up drive steering "Nothing to Lose." It's enough to keep the mojo risin', but the tandem's revving too much of a good thing. All this devotion to "Light Up the Sky" burns as a one-trick pony: flexed and commanding but flat and untested. So bust out the Budweiser, throw a fist into the air, and "Watch It Burn." Black Bone Child's "headstrong and on my way" toward some seriously homogenous shit-kicking.