This came out in 2003 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Because I love the rawk, I have spent the last few years searching out CDs by Swedish ’70s-style rifflords The Hellacopters — and shelling out import prices for ’em. So I figured we’d caught a break when the band’s fifth full-length, By The Grace Of God, was picked up for domestic release.
That is, until we heard it and found it’s the band’s most — oh, how I hate to say it — mature (sigh) disc to date, full of acoustic guitars and pianos and luxuries like vocal harmonies, guitars that are in tune and well-crafted songs. Which is not to say that songs like Better Than You, All New Low, Carry Me Home and The Exorcist don’t deliver the rawk anyway — they just do it a little slower and more stylishly than before, like an old postman in platform shoes. To put it another way: In KISS terms, their old albums were Dressed To Kill, while this is their Destroyer. And like that album did for KISS, By The Grace Of God could make them bigger than ever — but at the expense of their original fans. Talk about being caught between rawk and a hard place.
