Massachusetts indie power trio Thick Fuzz—bass player and lead vocalist Jonn Smith, producer Jared Egan on guitars, vocals and keyboards, and A.J. Locke on drums and percussion—recorded, mixed, and released this 10-track, self-titled album via Bandcamp.
While most bands in North America cite the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock, or the equivalent as their Eureka moment, Thick Fuzz were raised on a steady diet of Sabbath, James Gang, Van Halen and Judas Priest. The members have played together as the core musical engine of the Boston glam pop-metal band Sidewalk Driver, whose other members Kate Murdoch and Tad McKitterick contributed vocals to this new project. 
The driving force behind Thick Fuzz is humbucking riff-rock, with clear melodic vocals—no cookie monsters here—and the luxury of multi-tracking guitars and vocals create effective, occasional sonic walls. This is the kind of rock that would sit comfortably in the soundtrack of any Bruce Willis or Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.
The opening track “No Soul to Sell” launches with a furiously catchy guitar riff and sets the mid-to-up tempo rock mood for the rest of the album. Enhanced by a momentary stab at the infamous Thin Lizzy, twin guitars duel which leads into the chorus outro “I don’t worry about heaven / I don’t worry about hell / I don’t worry about nothing baby / Ain’t got no soul to sell.”
“A Little Sin Is Alright” mixes hard rock with a blues-based section and back again, serving favorable comparisons with Billy Gibbons and Phil Collen. “Summer In The City” is a standout blast of heat in the album, featuring glorious guitar work which supports a healthy horn section and a Hammond B3, played by Joe Egan. The almost fuzzed rockabilly turns into metal again with a pop key lift rebounding to the vocal chorus. If Stevie Wonder played metal, he’d cover this song!
The entire album is a coherent whole that takes listeners on a white-knuckled ride. The majority of Thick Fuzz was recorded at Tight Squeeze Studio and engineered by Jared and his father, Joe Egan, with “Summer In The City” produced and mixed by Brian Charles at Zippah Recording Studios, where the band tracked some additional parts.
If you’ve exhausted your pop-metal catalog and melted your vinyl collection from the ’80s, this album will pick you up from the doldrums and shake the teeth from your head—grab a copy and hold on. I can’t wait to catch these guys crank the album out onstage—no chicken throwing, no smoke bombs, no laser beams, no eating bats, no spandex or hairspray—just great, raw rock.