The new Volbeat album, Outlaw Gentlemen and Shady Ladies, came out earlier this month on the ninth and didn’t disappoint. They showed, once again, that they don’t stick to one genre and are not afraid to experiment with their music. They infuse rock and roll, metal, rockabilly, punk and schlager in their music to come up with a wide variety of songs.
The first introduction song, “Let’s Shake Some Dust,” a short, strictly instrumental song, could have been longer to adequately demonstrate the talent of the other band members. In fact, as a whole this song had more solos than previous, which was a nice change instead of having every song focus on the vocalist.
From there, it’s easy to hear the influence Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash had on the Danish band in their songs “Lonesome Rider” and “Doc Holliday.” In other songs, they prove again that they experiment with their sounds, taking a more poppy feel to their music in the songs “My Body” and “Cape Of Our Hero.” The songs are so uppity and bright that you forget that the singer, Michael Poulsen, had a background in death metal. It almost seems like he’s a sellout, giving up his original genre to try and gain more fame.
They even take a more romantic feel in “Lola Montez,” bringing up how beautiful and captivating she is in their song.
But his dark metal background comes into play with “Dead But Rising” and “Room 24.” Once again taking the focus off Poulsen and give people a taste of what their instrumentalists can do, they could focus on instrumentals more and it would improve their albums in the future.