Real Men don’t need to pose.
The Diamonds are growing up for real this time. Their new and third album is a great one, because they don’t have to prove anything to anyone anymore. They just play, kick ass and sound great!
The former trio turned into a quartet. Cy, Pete, Marc and the „new boy“ Zaki just got photographed by Thomas Rabsch, who has been working with acts such as Rammstein, Foo Fighters and the Beastie Boys. Listening to DONT BELIEVE WHAT YOU THINK is like meeting old friends. Stone Diamond are writing songs, which you seem to already know by heart when you hear them for the second time — it’s like meeting a long lost friend. The sound is vintage, analog and real. Zakis guitar adds a psychedelic side to the more complex arrangements. The two guitars make the band sound deeper and more diverse.
DONT BELIEVE was recorded live and analog at legendary Dierks-Studios by Producer Ulli Pallemanns. The studios, ruined by massive water damage a couple of years ago, seemed to be the perfect spot for the Retro-Sound performed on the album. There is shades of the old Rolling Stones at their best in the first single „Amy Van Dango“ — a slow and heavy grooving Sex’Soul-Sould Rocker which opens up the album for more to come. Cy drags you into the story of fictional Amy, the „saddest of her kind“. Dancing always was a cure for the sad and lonely.
What is left for me to say. It’s just impossible to write about music, it just doesnt make sense. All I can say: these four men have created a deep, impressing and diverse record. It’s real.