I recently rediscovered Turbostill’s third outing, Liquid Rock n’ Roll, in my music collection and can only conclude that I must have bought the CD at a local show I have no recollection of. This album represents everything your mother discouraged when you were growing up, but secretly did behind your back. She was the one who told you that you can’t judge a book by its cover. This album proves she was wrong about that too. If you can’t tell what this album represents by the cover, the album’s title or the track-listing then you’re obviously drunk and oblivious, and if the music doesn’t get you dancing you’re definitely not drunk enough.
For a change, with this album what you see is what you get; six down and dirty rock n’ roll tracks about drinking and well… rock n’ roll. The complete opposite experience is blindly picking up Atreyu’s the Curse with its booklet covered in pictures of a sexy, lingerie-clad vampire babe and being disappointed when you find that album is just a bunch of emo kids screaming.
The tracks are gritty and certainly not over-produced, in a really good way. The guys know how to work their instruments, which means the songs and the sound translates well to the live setting, and on stage is where the songs deserve to be. Each song its crowd pleasing moment, where the drunk guys and attractive girls get to scream out things like “Drink piss and play rock and roll!” or “Drinking is a real job!” with Kristov and Murray. It’s not often you can say Kiwi music is comparable to old school AC/DC, but this is one of those moments. That’s what I told my brother it was when he asked and he actually believed it was AC/DC, which is a testament to the quality of the music.
If you’re unfortunate enough to miss a show, or get too trashed to recall the gig then pick up a copy of Liquid Rock n’ Roll, because what you hear on this CD is exactly what you get at a Turbostill gig – well, save the drinking, moshing, rants in the smokers area and the lead singer dedicated songs to you.
Turbostill are a dirty rock 'n' roll band from the ever-prolific Palmerston North scene. Formed in late 2000, the band have been playing locally constantly since. With a sound they describe as "sometimes hard-out mayhem, sometimes an easy groove for those who like to rock".
After playing a final show in 2004 Turbostill disbanded only playing one show a year until properly reforming in 2008 for The Mai Farm Festival in Pohangina.
Since then Turbostill has released their third album 'Liquid Rock n' Roll'. Played a number of shows around New Zealand as well as performing in Melbourne in late 2009.