Fireball Ministry

Holy cowbell, biker babes! This co-ed stoner metal band sure has some gritty gee-tars and hard rock chops on its fourth studio effort, Their Rock Is Not Our Rock. The album takes its title from Deuteronomy 32:31, but the only gospel Fireball Ministry seems to be preaching is the gospel of gettin’ drunk, gettin’ it on, gettin’ revenge, or gettin’ yerself killed. There’s a sense of something dirty and dangerous beneath the surface of every song, a heavy dread lurking behind all the lunging power chords and fingers-on-fire fretwork solos. Produced by Mike Terry (Ash, Halford) and recorded in Dave Grohl’s Studio 606 West, the album provides the perfect soundtrack for riding cross-country in assless leather chaps on an obnoxiously loud, rumbling hawg. Witness “The Broken,” with its thick, meaty riffs and singer James A. Rota’s visceral, growling, more-intense-than-any-scene-in-Deliverance vocals. Or check out “Two Tears,” a hook-filled, head-snapping ditty about bloodshed. If anybody doubted the band was just using religious themes as a gimmick, a listen to the lyrics — which speak of the glory of hate and pain (“Hellspeak”) and announce “The time has come for killing” (“Save the Saved”) — confirms FM’s irreverence for everything but the gutter gods of rock.