Lord Loud: Timid Beast Album Review

By Jon Milton

RIFFS, RIFFS, RIFFS! If you, like me, love riffs, then you’ll love Timid Beast, the latest album by garage fuzz-meisters Lord Loud. It’s a veritable orgy of riffs, taking its inspiration from some of the greats from the Rock n Roll riff hall of fame.

Across the 11 tracks on show here, there are shades of Jimi Hendrix, Osees, Cream, Led Zep and probably loads more, all expertly put through the garage fuzz blender by this two piece from LA, comprised of Michael Feld (drums and percussion) and Chris Allison (Guitars, Vocals and everything else). 

The album kicks off all brash and bold with Dirty Seeds, with the riff in this case like Fishbone’s version of Curtis Mayfield’s Freddie’s Dead. The mean, strutting Hendrix-esque ‘Without You’ is up next, followed by sixties garage sound of ‘Lady Sunday’. The albums’ title track takes matters into Led Zep territory before ‘Imaginary’ kicks in – a song of two parts, the second element of which embraces the bands love of Osees, as is also the case on single ‘Labyrinth’. 

With an album so dominated by ballsy riff monsters the band have wisely chosen to place tracks like the glam stomping ‘Wherewithal’ between tracks like ‘The River’ and ‘Glances’ to prevent the album from becoming too one dimensional, although I think I’d like to have the sultry ‘Turbulence’ (which reminds me of Electric Ladyland era Hendrix and Red Hot Chilli Peppers) featured a bit earlier in the running order to break things up a bit further.

Nevertheless, Timid Beast rocks hard, and whilst the band’s influences run amok, their own style comes through (lord) loud and clear.         

Timid Beast is out now on King Volume Records (US) and Kozmik Artifactz (Europe). You can buy the vinyl at their Bandcamp: 

https://lordloudmusic.bandcamp.com/album/timid-beast