Archive Review: Blue Cheer’s What Doesn’t Kill You (2007)

Although they’ve influenced everything from Seattle grunge to modern “stoner rock,” Blue Cheer has always been nothing more than a humble ‘60s-era Frisco hippie band. Hard to tell, really, with the amps turned up past eleven and the band’s trademark blues-based, psychedelic candy-coated, acid-drenched hard rock sound. Forty years after the “Summer of Love,” Blue Cheer has bounced back with a brand new album featuring a streamlined old sound. 

Although not as crude as the band’s earliest output, What Doesn’t Kill You rocks every bit as hard, Dickie Peterson’s callused vocals pitched against Andrew McDonald’s strangling riffs, with drums that sound like a demolition derby. The songs are all sandpaper grit and diamond flash, showcasing a hard-won instrumental finesse and unflagging rock spirit, and what the band does to Albert King’s classic “Born Under A Bad Sign” is just downright sinful…which is exactly as it should be. (Rainman Records, released 2007)

Review originally published by Harp Magazine...