TKO – Let It Roll

Posted on April 1, 2008 by Olivier in Uncategorized // 0 Comments

TKO
LET IT ROLL
Released 1979 (Infinity Records), 2008 (Divebomb Records)

Track List:
01. Let It Roll
02. Ain’t No Way To Be
03. Only Love
04. Gutter Boy
05. Kill The Pain
06. Come A Day
07. Rock ‘N Roll Again
08. Bad Sister
09. What In The World
2008 Divebomb Records Bonus Tracks:
10. Introduction (Live 1978)
11. Rock ‘N Roll Again (Live 1978)
12. Bad Sister (Live 1978)
13. What In The World (Live 1978)
14. Gutter Boy (Live 1978)
15. Kill The Pain (Live 1978)
16. Only Love (Live 1978)
17. Let It Roll (Live 1978)
18. Ending (Live 1978)

Band:
Brad Sinsel – vocals
Rick Pierce – guitars
Tony Bortko – guitars and keyboards
Mark Seidenverg – bass
Darryl Siguenza – drums and percussion

Production:
Recorded by Mike Flicker. Executive producer and project coordinator Matthew H. Rudzinski.

Review:
TKO were rocking Seattle long before grunge made the city popular. They may have influenced some of those grunge artists, but thankfully they didn’t sound like them. Although this album doesn’t contain TKO‘s best work, it does introduce a young band trying to find their place in the late 70s rock scene.

  Let It Roll reminds me of early Riot material, in that both bands were on the brink of something special but just hadn’t quite put all the pieces together yet. In the case of TKO, at this point in their career they fell somewhere between The Who and a working-man’s Boston. The guitars hadn’t been cranked up yet, although vocalist Brad Sinsel (who later resurfaced in War Babies) already had his unique gravel throated delivery down pat.

  There is no denying that this CD came from the seventies, it has that dated sound to it – think Whitford/St.Holmes. Keyboards played a larger role in Let It Roll than it did on the band’s follow-up releases, resulting in this sounding more like bar-band mainstream rock as opposed to the heavier brand of music they would later perform.

  Upstart label Divebomb Records has reissued this long out-of-print (the original label actually went bankrupt by signing the Pope!!) and often bootlegged album with several live tracks from a 1978 KZOK-FM radio show. Renowned author Martin Popoff even writes the liner notes for this reissue, but to be honest I can only recommend this to people that want to hear TKO in their infancy – if you want good music get the reissue of In Your Face instead, which showcases the more metal version of TKO.

  divebombrecords.bigcartel.com – www.myspace.com/divebombrecords – www.tribunalrecords.net

Reviewed by Skid for Sleaze Roxx, April 2008.

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