With its bloozy hard rock riffing, wah-drenched guitar wankery and songs about girls and liquor, this Manitoba-based power trio desperately wants to be Guns N Roses. Unfortunately, they do nothing to add to the cock rock canon. This six-track EP kicks off with Sin City, a song whose lyrics match the unimaginative title: “Sin City, here I come / Sin City, gonna have some fun … Never answer to anyone, that’s how I roll.” Ugh. It doesn’t get much better from there, as singer-bassist Darryl Menow uses songs like Maybe I Should, Goneria and Her Name is K-Os to tell tales of trips to the bar spent drinking and hitting on girls who end up burning him in the end. I’m not sure where Menow is meeting girls named after Canadian hip-hop artists. In any case, Gathering of Flies should stop making “original” music and just form a hair metal cover band instead.

Published in Volume 64, Number 23 of The Uniter (March 18, 2010)