Black Gasoline

If you had to find one Kansas band for putting your David Cook-worshipping baby brother through rock-and-roll boot camp, Black Gasoline would proudly answer the call. While it's tempting to surmise that the Wichita band's shock-and-awe rock stems from an aspiration to be louder than the Learjets manufactured in its backyard, the five-piece unit more likely takes inspiration from British proto-metal acts like Deep Purple and Iron Maiden. The headbanging brotherhood shuffles and chugs its way through meat-and-potatoes rock — akin to modern acts like Kyuss and Nebula — and is utterly impervious to anything that might surface on American Idol.