Saturdays Heroes – Wanderlust And Hardships

Sweden is a place that musically is very high on my radar at the moment, so many great bands emanating from there over the past decade, and Scandinavia in general, Rotten Mind, Maggot Head, Randells, Diamonds And Guns and The Plague, just to name a few.  Now enter Saturdays Heroes into life my with their fourth album and yet another slot is taken in my record library of great albums.

Wanderlust And Hardships is by far their most ambitious yet though, and yes they defiantly pull this off with space to spare.  The greatness of this album emanates from the lack of restrictions this album seems to have in its style and direction, hit play on track one ‘Bastard Son’ and your immediately struck with the Crazy Arm type of Americana grass roots Rock n Roll, a kind of folk/anarchist music that is just so uplifting for the soul.  As the title suggests, this album is full of musical adventure that’s grounded with the lyrical realities of life, a song like ‘Compass’ has that sense of a life lived and a need to explore the city or world around you, then ‘How You Feel’ is a bit of an introspective that hits on how hard life can actually be when it’s filled with loneliness that comes from the constant search for the meaning to it all, but what they both do is still give a melodic uplift and a chorus that you can sing-a-long to, which is exactly what this album is full of.

The pinnacle is reached in this album exactly half way through, ‘One Way Ride’ hits every single nail on the head when it comes to describing what this band are about, anthemic songs that give the listener a feeling of belonging to a larger community, its a song that never looks back, just keeps pushing forward, just like the band over the successive albums, but this doesn’t by any means mean they have peaked to early in the album, far from it, its like reaching the peak and then travelling at that same great height for as far as it will take you.

They have been given space in the same vein as the likes of Rancid, The Clash and NOFX, but what Saturday’s Heroes do throughout this release, is to blend all that influence into something pretty darn close to original, yes it’s hard not to make comparisons, but who else can write and perform songs like ‘Time Wasted’ that have a folk sensibility yet a rock energy, and ‘Long Road Ahead’ that takes angst and rolls down the mountainside straight at the doubters.    

An album for the not so pure at heart, the fighters, the lovers, the optimistic, but most of all its for the get down and dirty Rock n Rollers who like there music fast and furious!

Out on the 14th October Via Lövely Records

Drop in on the band at FACEBOOK and on BANDCAMP