Freedom Hawk

Just as the album cover suggests with its late-‘60s ballroom-era Fillmore poster-inspired art, Freedom Hawk’s 2009 eponymous debut is overflowing with the kind of hard-driving, mind-melting, acid-rock-revival sounds that emerged from the 21st century’s underground in the early 2000s. “On the Other Side” opens with immediately infectious head-banging guitar as singer TR Morton croons double-tracked vocals to sound like a dead-ringer for Fu Manchu’s Scott Hill. Following a barrage of muscled six-string riffs, drummer Lenny Hines and bass player Mark Cave create a big and beefy bell-bottomed groove that begs longhairs to freak out on the dance floor like it was the summer of 1971. “My Road” grooves on a sludgier strut, allowing plenty of room for a catchy melody to seep into your memory and take hold. Both the verses and choruses of “Ten Years” are similarly memorable, though it’s the wah-wah guitar here that holds the most salient voice.