Mixed bag.
Despite featuring many musicians who individually have years of rocking under their belts, George Lynch, Yael and various guest musicians like Fred Leclercq (Dragonforce) and Morgan Rose (Sevendust)“Let The Truth Be Known” still manages to be a surprisingly bland and generic album. Coming across like a mix of Guns N’ Roses and Velvet Revolver, Californian four piece Souls Of We are very standard and old school heavy-ish American rock. Familiar riffs chug away underneath rumbling bass and Axl Rose-alike vocals, it immediately feels like music that’s been made by men wearing bandanas, shirts off to show off their tattooed sleeves and skinny black jeans, whether that’s the intention or not.
The album opens with rolling, chunky guitar riffs and a dirty rumble of bass underneath. Early on you notice that even though musically there is nothing new going on, lyrically it isn’t what you might expect, they don’t rely on sex to sell the majority of the record and actually they’re more about camaraderie and trying to leave you with something more interesting to think about. Generic though it is there are still some decent foot stomping moments of pomp to be had and enough melodic moments so that you remember a few of the tunes even after a first listen.
‘Skeleton Key’ is one of the more memorable tunes; a cheesy ballad style verse leads into a catchy rockin’ chorus with some decent fret-wankery to finish off. ‘Push It’ is a rousing and heavy number on which London Legrand sounds occasionally like Chris Cornell, which is a nice break from Axl Rose and ‘Psycho Circus’ is probably the highlight of the record, with more than one really great riff and plenty of variety in the vocal delivery. Overall, despite the familiar territory being covered, there are a few good tunes to be had with some nice quirky sections but it can sometimes feel that they haven’t made enough of the talent involved because some tracks sound like filler.