Speaking purely from a marketing point of view, Downspirit‘s problem is this:

If the members of this German outfit looked more like the heavies from a action movie starring The Rock and less like they were posing for the Sears “Peace, Love N’ Rock N’ Roll” catalog circa 1993, I have no doubt that they would be huge. HUGE, I say. People who “just wanna hear some real rock n’ roll with balls” — e.g., Godsmack and Hellyeah fans — would love this band, and an opening slot on the next edition of Crue Fest would almost certainly cement their place as one of the up and coming favorites of people who don’t know what contraceptives are.

Speaking purely from a creative point of view, Downspirit’s problem is this: they suck. Hard. I mean, I’ll take them over Hinder any day of the week, because at least I recognize Downspirit’s music as, y’know, music, and not just a war being waged against human ears. But this is totally generic, overly glossy, wholly ridiculous hard rock with nothing to speak for it, other than, I’d wager, it gets a lot of aging German groupies wet, and therefore vocalist Steffen Lauth can continue to get laid, despite apparently being really, really excited that he just found a Pizza Hut.

Real rock n’ roll will never die, and there will always be a place for blues-based hard rock bands. But if you highest artistic ambition is to sound kinda like a bad Collective Soul cover band, I have no need of thee. Be gone, Downsyndro… uh, spirit.

(1 1/2 out of five horns)

-AR