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Sally H. Alamo Race Track
After
years of silence, in 2023 Alamo Race Track's breakthrough album 'Black
Cat John Brown' was re-released and the band toured after it this last
spring. At the same time a new album was announced for fall this year
and with Sally H. the first single is shared with the world. Expect pop
in a lot of guises. Mid-60s psychedelia, The Beatles, indie pop and
loads of melody, voices and instruments. Like a lot of the best songs of
these eras Sally H. is just as poppy as it is melancholy. It is the mix
that makes this song stand out successfully. More than twenty years
after the start of the Amsterdam band there's still a lot of life in it.
Joey, Johnny,
Dee Dee, Tommy, Mick, Keith, Brian, Charlie, that's all Brad Marino
needs. (Where's Bill or have I missed something?) Marino rocks out for
less than two minutes and all is clear for the world. The song is more
Ramones than Stones, that much is clear. All I'm missing here is "one,
two, three, four" after which the song kicks in. Ramones & Stones is
tight, punk, and in your face. Like The Ramones can't make it anymore,
as all original members died, far too early, I have to add. This song is
a great tribute to an original band that still speaks volumes to a lot
of people. Without ever having sold albums in numbers that The Stones
did, nor scored big hits, The Ramones are the standard for many band
after them and to come. Perhaps, even more than The Stones are. This
single show just that. The Kinks and The Beatles though? I'm keeping them if you don't mind, Brad. They are truly my
bands as well.
Be
surprised and hear the disco in Linnea's Garden's new single. Not that in The City
is an obvious disco song, far from even. The rhythm is unmistakable
though. As is the little synth effect just before and in the chorus.
Think a small sister version of the huge synth in ABBA's 'Gimme Gimme Gimme'.
In The City adds a psychedelic interlude in the guitar solo with (I
think) a flanger effect on the guitar, giving it a wobbly, spacey sound.
With In The City Linnea Herzog is experimenting with her sound and
rather successful as well. Her duet with Carissa Johnson pays off too. The two, different voices give the song something extra, as a duet
should. In the verse it is the twangy country guitar that is surprising
in hindsight, after the disco drums and synth come in in the chorus.
Overhearing it all, In The City surprises on a few levels and gets
better by the spin. Welcome back on this blog, Linnea.
"Nana
nana", the oh so simple yet so effective singing draws the listener
straight into the 90s style rock song of Scottish-Canadian singer
Apricity. With Ben Healey's guitar backing her up and the bottom end in
the able care of bassist Thomas McKay and drummer Davide DiRenzo the
song becomes huger than huge in their hands. The story is inspired by
Lewis Carroll's famous story about a girl who wants to live in the
wonderland. The video, a big production, 30 years ago promised high
rotation. Does this even exist anymore? It shows scenes inspired by the
book and movie and the flipside of living in a dreamworld, as in real world response to it. Apricity produced a very convincing rock
single. Allison Wonderland is a great song borrowing from a lot of
things from the past, including a small part where a grunter could have
appeared with ease. It's all there but the winning element is the pop
vibe that comes with it all. A nice single Allison Wonderland is.
Album
'Roots' received a positive reception in this blog a little of a year
ago. The Swedish rockers return with a stand alone single in the late
spring of 2023. The single brings back a lot of memories from my teenage
years when all sort of rock bands started to break big. From Dutch
symphonic rockers Earth & Fire to U.S. bands like Heart and
Fleetwood Mac (also haling from the U.K. of course). Come With Us is not
just a copycat song. The obvious fun the Swedish rockers have in
playing it, adds the energy the song needs and because of it an element of
Children of the Sün. The six piece, with the ladies winning 4 to 2, led
by a singer with a huge voice. Josefina Berglund Ekholm is the kind of
lead singer any rock band can only dream of. Supported by three other
voices, it makes a song like Come With Us, "to the sun", interesting on different levels. Vocally there are
many options while musically the sound is all ready big and bigger. The
Swedes rock like Heart did on its first two album with songs like 'Magic
Man' and 'Barracuda'. Come With Us is in direct competition, also in
quality. Who starts playing the song on the radio over here? It deserves
it.
The Dreggs is a
duo from Australia playing folk songs with an acoustic guitar and a
banjo. There's no doubt which band inspired The Dreggs to start playing:
Mumford & Sons. The good news is that I like my introduction to The
Dreggs better than any of the songs by the U.K. band that for a few
years were one of the biggest bands on this planet. Paddy Macrae and
Zane Harris are from the Sunshine Coast in Australia with a great liking
for the ocean coming together with the shore there. For Your Love is an
upbeat song of the kind that should come with living in sunshine for
most of the year. At the same time the song knows a longing for
something that for both Macrae and Harris is still unfulfilled. The love
of children that are not yet born, is the theme of For Your Love. Caught
in an upbeat folk song, driven by the banjo and the drums rhythm, the
yearning for love is very acute. In August The Dreggs can be found in
NL, without a debut album in sight (yet).
Not
long ago Oscar Lang found his way to this blog for the first time,
since one single after the other is being released. This is the third,
if I counted correctly, and of the kind deserving a spot. Everything
Unspoken is an up tempo psychedelic song somewhere between rock and pop.
Lang starts and ends the song with a gamelan kind of sound, adds an
acoustic guitar, before that tempo kicks in. Although that tempo is what
I noticed first, it is much worthwhile to listen behind it, as
Everything Unspoken is extremely rich in sounds and small melodies. It's
the kind of song that will still divulge surprises years after listening for the first time.
There's so much happening that my ears simply can not keep up. From a
three note sequence that is repeated throughout the song, to weird
atmospherics moving in and out, it all has its place in Everything
Unspoken. For the second time in three songs Oscar Lang surprises me.
Three more weeks before 'Look Now' hits the stores.
My
Ugly Clementine returns to the blog with a nice rocker. Is it me or is
there some Wet Leg in the song? The lyrics certainly bring some of the
Isle of Wight band to mind. Which is fine, as 'Wet Leg' was my favourite
album of 2022. The Vienna threesome, Sophie Lindinger, Mira Lu Kovacs
and Nastasja Ronck, manage to present a seriously rocking song like it
is just fun and not simply good. Feet Up has a few elements that stand
out. Good singing, a nice beat on the hi-hat, and a descending guitar
run, enough to make a song special. The band literally sings about
having their feet up. It's nice but boring, rhyming to icecream from the
store. The interlude where the rhythm disappeared, underscores the
boredness, before the party goes off anyway, as it does not take a lot
of imagination to see a venue or field get off on the final section of
the song, with its discolike rhythm. Just one question. Why in this time
of woke, are more and more female bands and singers tape nude videos? I
don't get it.
Is
there anything wrong with a straightforward rock song? No, there isn't
as The Gypsy Moths show on its latest single Tilt-A-Whirl. The Bostonian
band is not your average band. It has a saxophone player as dominant as
the one on Bowie's 'Absolute Beginners'. It gives the rock and roll a
soul injection that works really well. I'm even reminded of Dexys
Midnight Runners mach 1 with great hits like 'Geno' and 'There There My
Dear'. Tilt-A-Whirl has that same kind of aliveness, while musically
certainly different from the northern soul Dexys was emulating in 1980.
Besides, Steve O'Brien is a rock singer with a great voice. Together
with Scott Miller's double tracked sax he draws the most attention but
listen behind them and notice the warm Hammond sound and some tinkered
piano notes here and there played by Mark Donahue. The other three play a
serving role but are part of a great song. In fact the more I'm hearing
it the more I notice and the better the song becomes. Tilt-A-Whirl
spells hit in my world.
I'm one of the persons who was present in time in "far-away" Lochem to hear and see Bo Diddley play in 1984 at the now long-extinct festival with the same name. To see Jack Bruce and Friends play live after having seen Bruce on Rockpalast Nacht. I had no real idea who Diddley was, except one of the rock and roll greats, mentioned usually in one go with Muddy Waters, which in hindsight is quite odd. I remember thinking after a few songs that it all sounded the same, which is actually true. Diddley died 15 years ago on June 2nd and that led to Eindhoven's The Mono Kids to cover Diddley's signature song Hey Bo Diddley. The song may be recorded in the lo-fi style of The Mono Kids, the energy that is part of Bo Diddley's song is there alright. The duo does the song totally right and gets Bo Diddley a little out of the obscurity he has descended into for decades. I had sort of forgotten all about him. Yet truth be told that stop-start-stop-start rhythm that is truly his, is exciting, for three songs at a time, agreed, but his for sure. And Hey Bo Diddley in this new version shows it.
Wout de Natris
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