With “Year Of The Snake”, the ladies of The Gems are releasing their second album within 2 years. Their debut album “Like A Phoenix,” released in 2024, received generally positive feedback, and the band, or rather the trio behind the band, have put on quite a few performances with the help of various bassists. There is nothing wrong with The Gems’ work ethic. And then guitarist Mona Lindgren also became a mother in the meantime. A deep bow.
How they do it all is a mystery to me. What is clear is that after the intro ,,Walls,” the album opens with a bang with the title track. ,,Year Of The Snake” is a top-notch earworm and just nothing less than a killer song. On the upbeat song ,,Gravity,” Tommy Johansson [Sabaton] sings a duet with singer Guernica Mancini. It’s also a great rock and roll song. And it must be said that Guernica simply has one of the best voices in this genre.
Just a touch of this and that.
The same goes for ,,Diamond In The Rough” and ,,Live And Let Go.” Mona’s guitar work on this album seems to be more inspired by Europe, with a touch of Van Halen here and there.
That’s also the direction the ladies are steering on this album. More melodic rock than the no-nonsense rock and roll we already knew from The Gems, which was clearly more in line with their former band Thundermother.
,,Clout Chaser” has a nice chorus and ,,Hot Bait” seems to be inspired by Van Halen, especially when you hear the opening riff and verses. And we’re only halfway through the album.
However, I must admit that ,,Forgive And Forget” is not the strongest moment on the album. As far as I’m concerned, the strongest songs are on the first half of the album. In my opinion, songs like ,,Go Along To Get Along,” ,,Math Ain’t Mathing,” and ,,Buckle Up” don’t reach that great level of the first few songs.
But what are we talking about? The first songs rock like crazy and are in themselves a good reason to buy this album. And it’s certainly not true that the rest of the songs are rubbish. Definitely not, because the closing track ,,Happy Water” shows once again what this band is capable of.
Moving forward on their own
Guernica, Mona, and Emlee prove that they definitely have a life after Thundermother and are capable of composing great songs on their own. I therefore maintain my position that this split has given us two great bands, both with their own identity.
The fact is that this album really grabs me at times. Has a great production and has some suberb songs and that’s what counts. If continuity were a little more stable now, it would go into high rotation here.
All in all, a great second album from The Gems, Bang your head.
Report by Raymond Helebrand
