This five-piece from Rome is on a mission to put Italy on the map of modern Heavy Rock. The name HELLIGATORS and the title of their second album “Road Roller Machine” already hint on it. And they do pretty well at this. Imagine a well balanced mix of old fashioned Heavy Rock with a certain BLACK SABBATH vibe, some good Grunge Rock in the vein of SOUNDGARDEN and 1990s based Alternative Rock, spiced up with Blues, Stoner and Southern Rock elements. Sounds yummy, if you’re not only into extreme Metal, but sometimes looking for some alternatives on your musical dish. The opening ball-crushing double pack of ‘Nomad’ and the programmatic ‘The Doomstroyer’ really convinces with a feeling for cool grooves, heavy riffing and good songwriting skills. After this start, the following tunes don’t exactly keep the high level, even though especially the cool ‘She Laughs’ is a bit of all right. But then there’s the fuckin’ dope rockin’ ‘Swamp Man Voodoo’, with a freakin’ slide guitar intro piece that leads to a song of SOUNDGARDEN qualities. And don’t forget the rocking ‘Bad Ass’, who has its name for a good reason. In the end, ‘Black Sun’ is one of the coolest slide and acoustic guitar based songs of the millennium. So there’s a lot of reasons to lend this big surprise of an album an ear! Visit the band at www.helligators.com, where you can listen to some songs as well, or www.facebook.com/helligators. Label contact: www.sliptrickrecords.com