Ratchet - Changes

Hear The Track Here

It was great to see my old friend, guitarist par excellence Ty Kaufman returning to Soundclick after a long hiatus, and with a new band in tow. Ratchet (US) is in fact their name on Soundclick but hey I know where they are from. Ty first came to my notice in 2004 when I reviewed a clutch of tracks from the Ty Kaufman Group, from which I also met Steve Calapp, a vocalist we have also come across since with Confusion Said. See, it really is a small world. Ratchet, however, are a band in the time honoured sense and there are numerous references to Tool hanging around this band, although I think that comparison is a bit limited. I know for a fact Ty can play pretty much anything that comes down the pike, and nail it.

Compromise (October 2010) was the first actual Ratchet track I got my hands on and - being a rock animal of long standing - played it to death. It is, of course, the hardest of hard rock, in that new variety shown by the aforementioned Tool, Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chillies etc which IMHO is a very logical move and it is certainly keeping the rock spirit alive and well and that's never a bad thing. Classic rock has a long and varied history and bands like Ratchet embody pretty much all its best features - except (thankfully) the big hair ;) Well, the big news is that Changes is damn sight tougher than Compromise and that was plenty hard enough.

Changes finds the band exploring a slower, much raunchier style that, personally, I prefer and you know how I feel about all that slow ****. There's slow where it actually counts and this is one of those tracks, and rock through and through. I can see this band going down a storm when they play live, they are from the Bay Area in the US so if you live there and want to have your ears pinned back definitely go and see them, then come and write a review of the gig. For me, the main thing about rock bands and their music is can they convince me, and Ratchet convince me six ways from Sunday. Rock as it should be, loud, proud and bad to the bone.

Highly Recommended slab of rock.