East Side Drive. The Heartdrops

East Side Drive is a re-released album from 1999. An album and a band I had never heard of and chances are that I would not really have liked the album at the time. Not so in 2021. East Side Drive is an album that is charged with energy. More importantly it is filled with great punkrock songs. The Heartdrops provides songs that have great melodies along with that wall of guitars backed up by a bass guitar that is playing so hard that it becomes a concrete wall in the background holding up the whole world if needed. Alongside that solid foundation the drummer can basically do what he wants to and regularly does. Of course fierce rhythms but not without machine gun rolls or cymbaltop subtleties. He can play them all, because his back is taken care off.

Rum Bar Records has unearthed the output of a record label from New York called Melted Records and one of the bands on that label was The Heartdrops, a three piece consisting of Luke Metz - Bass, Vocals / Chris Clay - Vocals, Guitar / Ben James - Drums, Percussion. After releasing a few EPs and one album, 'This Is The Heartdrops', the band released its final album in 1999 and what a loss for the world it is that it ended there and then. Come 2021 Rum Bar released a digital, "name your price" Melted Records sampler (see the link below) and has started to re-release full albums. It's impossible to keep up with the pace Rum Bar has releasing singles and albums, I do not even try, but this is another album that just cries out "listen to me"! And not in a demure way.

Chris Clay and Luke Metz manage to sing together in a great punk way. Clay has that in your face way of singing, so full of confidence and spunk. He leads the way forward without hesitation. Now confidence and spunk are all fine but not without the songs. I am certain that if it were all to be stripped away and a song like 'Coming Back' was handed to a duo like Simon & Garfunkel in the mid 60s it would have turned out as a great song as well. Here it holds all that makes a punkrock song so great to listen to. Great riffing, dynamics, a strong solo, the lyrics to sing along to.

Why some really good bands break big and others don't, is always a bit of a mystery. Meeting the right people at the right moments, slightly better looks, a better manager or booker, there can be a million reasons besides having better songs. Concerning East Side Drive I dare to state that this album does not pale besides what Green Day was releasing in the 90s, let alone The Offspring.

Come 2021 I can imagine Chris Clay bringing his kids to a sports match and one of the other fathers saying to another, "did you know Chis played guitar in a punk band"? "No, which one"? It happened to me somewhere in the 00s with the guitarist of Dutch punk pioneers Ivy Green. He had become a lawyer since and never played guitar after going to university. I haven't a clue what has become of the members of The Heartdrops but on the basis of what I'm hearing on this surprisingly good record, I hope that every once in a while someone will say to them 'I love your record'! Since a few weeks I do, so let me say from behind my computer: "I love your record!".

Wo.

You can listen to and buy East Side Drive here:

https://rumbarrecords.bandcamp.com/album/east-side-drive-melted-records-archives

the Melted sampler is here:

https://rumbarrecords.bandcamp.com/album/if-it-aint-tasty-it-aint-melted-the-melted-records-years-1995-2001-free-bandcamp-download-mixtape-sampler

or listen to our Spotify Playlist to find out what we are writing about:

https://open.spotify.com/user/glazu53/playlist/6R9FgPd2btrMuMaIrYeCh6?si=KI6LzLaAS5K-wsez5oSO2g