Man Raze - Surreal Album Review

Man Raze are a three piece rock band made up of Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook as well as Def Leppards Phil Collen and former Girl member Simon Laffy. However its Def Leppard fans that will enjoy this 'super groups' effort most. Surreal which isn't very surreal at all, sounds at times more like Collens 80s stadium rock than it does Cooks 70 punk. For evidence of this, just listen to the angry, Turn it up, with the repetitive, crowd friendly chorus of 'Turn it up, turn it up, turn it up' you get the picture. 

A few curve balls are also thrown in along the way, none more so than the Reggae tinged effort Runnin' Me Up. Cullen adjusts his vocals to suit the ska tinged sound and to a certain degree it works very well. Its disappointing then that regression is found with the clichéd Bryan Adams sounding, Low, which finds itself coming up short when measured against the albums earlier tracks.

Skin Crawl to a certain degree saves the day with its clever changes of pace and heavy bass lines, leading to a strong chorus that should please the Man Raze demographic no end.

Despite not sounding like the most current of efforts, you can't knock a band for achieving what they originally set out to do. You know what you're going to get from Surreal before you even turn it on, and if you're looking for radio friendly stadium sounding rock, then Man Raze certainly deliver it in large doses.

Sam Marland