With people loving everything having the least bit to do with the NWOBHM these days, the field of artists plying their trade tossing off cock-rock riffage and bong-loaded references is becoming an increasingly crowded one. While there’s little that makes North Carolina quartet ASG stand out from the thousands of hirsute axe-swingers out there, Win Us Over, the band’s fourth album, is filled with slice after slice of slick and somewhat candy-coated modern stoner rock that is a potent brew of sharp hooks, re-hashed riffs and anthem melodies. They’re not as triumphant as Queens of the Stone Age or as overarchingly over-the-top as Avenged Sevenfold, but their workmanlike dedication to their craft is impressive in and of itself, albeit in a derivative manner. They’re plugging away nicely, but if they’re looking to fill arenas and land their mugs on the covers of Kerrang, they’re going to need to forge a unique musical identity to match their chops, otherwise, they’re in danger of becoming just another casualty of the hard rock machine that’s doomed so many bands of their ilk to relative obscurity.
“Gallop Song”
