Tankard - Pavlov's Dawgs (2022)

As much as I love the first three Tankard full-lengths, and enjoy some of their material since, there can be no doubt that a lot of their albums of the last 20 years suffer from a sameness syndrome in which you could swear you've already heard the riffs a half-dozen times. Of course, even this period had a standout for me in The Beauty & The Beer, and I cite that title because their latest, 18th (?) full-length Pavlov's Dawgs has a lot of the same sense of melody to it as that one. Rather than the more punk and splatter-fueled alcoholic thrash of their formative era, they've been infusing a lot more of a heavy metal sensibility into their tunes, which ends up working well below Gerre's vocals, because the guy's vocals are just timeless, and even here, almost 40 years after their debut, he still sounds fantastic.

The production is likewise pristine, a vibrant and iron-fisted rhythm guitar tone redolent of the last couple decades of Destruction, and everything is crystal clear, which works well to leverage the nastier vocals and then the melodic, well-constructed leads from Andy Gutjahr which are quite good here. Frank's bass thumps along heavily and Olaf's drums are flawless in his 28th year with the band. In fact, from a pure production/accessibility standpoint, Pavlov's Dawgs might be the band's highlight of the entire post-Disco Destroyer period, and sounds killer on every speaker I've played it through. The downside is that, while there's no question of the effort that went into this album, the tunes are just not highly memorable on any level of consistency. They sound like more of the same that you heard on the last 5-6 discs, with perhaps a slightly elevated sense of melody, but there aren't many killer chorus parts or riffs that truly hook you under the keg and fill you to bursting with mosh-brew.

Now, having said that, I am so attracted to the Tankard aesthetic in general that it's still a pretty decent listen if you just shut your mind off. I mentioned Andy's guitar playing, and that's a particular point which excels here, he's hurling in all these trad/power metal dual harmonies in there and you can constantly sense this potential to explode as he reaches some new level of six-string mastery. Though the riffs and rhythm section are rushing and crushing along through the entirety, the way the vocals soar almost creates a mellow vibe off the top, like it's intense and laid back simultaneously. While the tunes don't slay me, I also can't say it's boring, just like a very 'matured' version of this band which strides forward with full drunken confidence. The album does feel like Beauty & the Beer filler, so whether or not you're going to dig it might depend on your reaction to that one, or maybe 2017's One Foot in the Grave. It's probably impossible at this point that we return to the explosive controlled chaos of The Morning After or the steelpunk-driven Zombie Attack, but I'm alright with this, and I'll keep buying their albums even if just to support their determination and consistency.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

https://www.tankard.info/