The Answer is the U.K.’s answer to artists like Ted Nugent or Unboxed-era Sammy Hagar about a decade too late. The group most recently made news in Kerrang! and Classic Rock Magazine as being the latest blues rock talent of the new millennium. While this could amount to great things like 300,000 records sold (and due to high demand, subsequently repackaged), as was the case with their debut EP, Rise, it’s a short lived success. Why? Because the sophomore release, Everyday Demons, seems like a carbon copy of its predecessor. Within only a few years, they sold their first album twice and then proceeded to record a follow-up to for fans only. What does this translate to? A saturated public and rushed production, the former of which speaks volumes considering the lackluster sales of either work in the US. Even finding torrents for this band feels as difficult as tracking Wednesday 13′s solo efforts.

All in all, Everyday Demons carries a minimal weight of musical value for anyone who likes party music in the vein of Back In Black, but it is neither a classic nor a “must have,” even if the UK truly calls them an “answer to anything”. Everyday Demons starts promptly with the track “Demon Eyes” and from that point forward, quite literally, everything sounds practically the same a la AC/DC (minus Angus Young’s killer riffs). Certainly this brand of continuity constitutes not fixing what isn’t broken, however, that spells tragedy for a band trying to make its mark in a really disorganized hurry.

When Paul Mahon, son of The Freshmen’s jazz trumpeter, formed this band in 2000 with a guitar and some close associations, he probably expected to go relatively far on looking like Robert Plant’s doppelganger. As The Answer went on to open for acts such as Deep Purple and Paul Rodgers, the headliners alone should have forecasted things to come. What else does one expect from the opening band of a “has been” rock band and a Freddie Mercury replacement? This is not to say The Answer is lacking talent, but with little to no hype in the States, exposure here has been detrimental to sales and touring with these acts is the equivalent of being a Foghat cover band vocalist (James Patrick Stuart, I’m looking at you).

I will be honest, I think they need a ton of exposure – but first they need something more original. The Answer could stick with what works, but according to responses, globally speaking, that which seemed to work did not. Nothing wrong with the band itself, but songs like “Cry Out” and “Dead Of The Night” seem to run together with everything else on Everyday Demons. It all feels rushed out just in time to coincide with the band’s boosting revenue from Rise‘s re-release, and this material’s not staying the course – it’s simply running in place.

Everyday Demons is one of those alright albums that you can listen to a couple of times before tucking it away in the case and waiting for that accidental nostalgia to kick in ages later. It is entertaining for what it is, but not for what it could have been. The Answer leaves at least one unanswered question in its wake: where do they want to be 5 years from now? Hopefully, not in a dust sleeve.

Check Out:
“Demon Eyes”