Woodstock Mafia – Trigger & Gun (2013)

Woodstock Mafia are a South African rock band, launched in 2011, who are ‘blazing trails on the SA music scene’ and have played at a lot of festivals including Rocking The Daisies, Synergy Live and RamFest. The band is self-managed by vocalist Joe Theron, Nick Van Rensburg on guitar, Ryan Matthews on bass and Owen Ingarfield on guitar. Their single ‘Trigger & Gun’ is the perfect third single and solid foundation for their upcoming album Defiance, available September 13th.

The song starts with light guitars and strong vocals, and then proceeds to become more like a rock song which is what I like: a quiet start, then a loud, powerful couple of verses and chorus. From listening to the first minute or so their influences such as Kings of Leon and Biffy Clyro become clear. Theron has good vocals that you can actually hear, unlike other rock songs where you can’t hear what the singer is saying. The song is quite catchy, with a chorus you’ll have in your head for days.

The lyrics are a bit of a letdown as some of the verses (especially the first one) is about war, a topic not many people can relate to. But the rest of the verses and the chorus are about being both a sinner and a saint, and the subject of the song should be scared as they will apparently regret it if they look into Theron’s face. The lyrics are vocalised very powerfully with the point, I think, to scare people and yet empower them to speak up at the same time, so the underlying message is quite relatable. I wish they’d made that clear from the start of the song.

Overall, the single is a very good rock song with powerful lyrics, light and strong guitars and sets them up well for the rest of their upcoming album.