It was all about the ’90s at the Slice, Saturday, April 23 with a couple of Edmonton bands swhoing their roots.
While I missed local funk/ pop band the Good Love band, I was in time for Medical Pilot.
They combined elements of Pearl Jam, Sum 41 pop punk with a dash of Alexisonfire screamo and a smattering of Big
Wreck progressive rock. Upbeat melodies were punctuated by ear-piercing screams from the bassist who sang lead vocals on their last song.
Fellow Edmontonians Hungry Hollow were last here six years ago. While Medical Pilot embraced the heavy. Hungry Hollow might as well have stepped out of 1995.
They embraced post grunge, melodic mid ’90s rock. They wouldn’t have been out of place on a playlist featuring The Tragically Hip, Black Crowes, Blind Melon and Stone Temple Pilot and the Spin Doctors.
They played a tight set of carefully crafted original rock, what apparently has broken through on the Bear in Edmonton. They played their latest more punk tinged single, “Let Us Ride” which is getting airplay on the popular Edmonton rock station. The band traversed the ’90s, touching on grunge, funk, pop and straight ahead rock.
But they also had a bit more modern flair on a couple tracks that had a heavy Queens of the Stone Age feel. The lead guitarist sang lead vocals on the more Queens of the Stone Age inspired tracks, in addition to adding sweet solos throughout.
They added a solid cover of The Glorious Sons’ “Mama,” which showed off the lead vocalists range.
They ended their set with a cover of the Foo Fighters’ “Wheels.”
— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor