Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Quickies - Jack White, Takeaway Thieves, and Snowblind

Today's round-up brings together three different versions of rock'n'roll, from the famed Jack White to up'n'comers Takeaway Thieves and Ireland's "progressive metallers" Snowblind.

Jack White – No Name
 
I can’t say I’m a devoted Jack White fan.  Yeah, I’ve got some albums by The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, and The Dead Weather, and I admire his determination to do the unexpected and generally fuck things up to keep his audience on their toes.  But he also seems too bleedin’ clever by half at times, and his tendencies towards squawking, whiny vocals and clatter’n’bash percussion can become grating.
But still, I like this – a lot in fact.  It took me a while to get round to buying No Name, and to give it a proper listen, but it was worth it.
Take something like ‘Bless Yourself’, fr’instance, which marries a lead-heavy, jabbing, thudding
Shape-shifting chameleon Jack White
riff to a very Whitean herky-jerky rhythm and a more or less rapped vocal, packing plenty into three minutes. Deciphering White’s lyrics amid the maelstrom isn’t always easy, but he’s no cliché merchant, as this confrontational ‘sermon’ suggests with lines like “If god’s too busy then I’ll bless myself”.  And a little later he’s returning to religious imagery with ‘Archibishop Harold Holmes’, a preaching, testifying monologue by the eponymous pontiff - "Just like Joshua and the fabled walls of Jericho, I'm here to tear down the institution" - on which a churning ‘Immigrant Song’-like riff rides a rap undercurrent, supplemented by a wiry, Sixties-sounding staircase of a guitar theme.
White is the kinda guy with an encyclopaedic musical memory, and on No Name there are lots of can’t-quite-put-your-finger on it glimmerings of old songs and artists.  Are these inadvertent, or is he teasing us, like a fly fisherman casting for trout?  Cop an earful of ‘Terminal Archenemy Endling’ for example, on which spooky guitar notes lead to a melody that nods heavily towards Zeppelin’s ‘That’s The Way’, but brooding rather than sweet and pastoral.  Oh yeah, and the subsequent surging guitar riff sounds pretty Zep-like too.
Whatever, White has bashed out some cracking tunes here. ‘That’s How I’m Feeling’ flips from verses with a darkly post-punk feel to a chorus like a demolition ball, to an intriguing electronica-like guitar break.  ‘Tonight (Was A Long Time Ago)’ is bright and catchy with its stop-start riff of jaggedly resounding chords.  On ‘Underground’ he mashes up Resonator-slide Delta-style blues with perky pop reminiscent of – what, Mungo Jerry maybe?  Okay, maybe not.  But ‘Morning At Midnight’ is a great garage-rock outing, with its jabbing, stabbing riff, quiet/loud dynamics, catchy hook, and scratchy, sparky bridge – as Jack himself proclaims, “Oh yeah!”.  These are my highlights, but you may find your own among the 13 tracks, all delivered with energy and conviction.
Jack White is a chameleon, a shape-shifter, and a moving target.  But No Name, an album he chucked out with barely a whisper of PR, sounds like the work of a guy who woke up one morning from a fever dream of rock’n’roll, hit the studio, and tried to get it all down before it escaped.
 
No Name
 is out now on Third Man Records.
 
 
Takeaway Thieves – Diamond Point
 
I bought Diamond Point after tripping over the opening track (and single) ‘Kickin’ My Heart Around’ on YouToob, a belter of a glam-rock infused tune if ever I heard one.  It’s a raucous affair with a ringing riff, rasping vocals from Peter McLoughlin, a stonking chorus teeming with gang vocals on the title line, and a neat guitar solo from Ben Gibson that may not be especially original but fits the bill perfectly.
Takeaway Thieves get noisy and sweaty
Pic by Cyclops Gig Photos
The Thieves aren’t wedded to this glam’n’garage rock vibe across the whole of Diamond Point, but they do give it another shot with the rattling rock’n’roll of ‘True Story’, which comes with a glorious turbocharged riff, a cracker of a melody and hook, and more of those all-hands-on-deck backing vocals, plus spot on spasms of piercing, trilling lead guitar.  The following ‘Gotta Get Back’ isn’t in exactly the same space but still rocks like a bastard, kicking off with a snapping snare drum and bouncing riff, to go with McLoughlin’s in-yer-face vocals, enthusiastic grunts of “Yeah – ugh!” on the side, and good dynamics in the bridge.
‘What Do You Want’ is Def Leppard-style anthemic, sorta, with rock steady bass’n’drums from Adam Hall and Max Yates, electro-static riffs to stick your hair on end, and another tasteful bridge.  They show a subtler touch with vocal harmonies here, and there are some smart guitar harmonies too, from Gibson and his guitar buddy Neil Hunter, adding up to three minutes and 11 seconds of sharp and snazzy melodic hard rock.
Elsewhere, straight up hard rock is pretty much their go-to place, and if it doesn’t quite have the same joie de vivre, they still make a decent fist of it.  ‘I’ll Be Waiting For You’ has a pummelling riff, and rat-a-tat vocals from McLoughlin.  ‘Crazy Horse’ is crunching stuff, with a jagged, slaloming riff, racing bass and whomping drums, and wailing vocals from McLoughlin, to which Gibson adds a zinging guitar break.  ‘Sundance’ is built on a staccato riff and some supple bass from Hall, and the chorus brings a bit of a glam-edged spark culminating in some Slade-worthy crashing chords. They cool things off nicely on the bridge too, with some distorted vocals, before another mint-fresh, noodle-free solo from Gibson.
‘Gypsy’ is grinding and gutsy, but perhaps more predictable, though with the odd feisty line like “I’ve stained the carpets everywhere I’ve been”.  They also have a bash at slowing things down with ‘Find My Way Home’, which gets more interesting as they rev it up a bit, and the more ambitious closer ‘Suicide 66’, with its pseudo-Arabic epic moments, though it doesn’t really feel like their sweet spot.
Takeaway Thieves probably won’t be the next big thing, but I reckon they’d be just the job for a noisy, sweaty rock’n’roll gig.  Good luck to ‘em.
 
Diamond Point is out now on Coffee’N’Mint Records, and can be ordered here.
 
 
Snowblind – Shapes In The Trees EP
 
Safe to say this 5 track EP by Irish trio Snowblind ain’t yer typical Blues Enthused review fare.  But I’m covering it because it’s such a headscratcher.  There are some things I really like on Shapes In The Trees, and some things I really don’t – often in the same song.
Partly this is a generational thing.  See, I was a heavy metal kid back in the mists of time, but never got into speed metal, thrash metal, doom metal or anything else that’s long on stürm und drang and short on wit.  Whereas Snowblind are young enough to be very much au fait with the shouty, thud and blunder oeuvre of the likes of, say, Mastodon.  But here’s the thing – Snowblind still come up with elements that appeal to an old git like me.
So let’s consider the eight minute plus opener ‘Shapes In The Trees’.  It kicks off with twisting, spinning guitar lines from Sean Boland, interleaved with bobbing and weaving bass from Ian Mckeon and drumming from Jake McCarthy that’s thunderous to be sure, but also imaginative.
Snowblind - lumberjacks in their spare time, and they're okay
Before long though Mckeon, who I gather undertakes most of the vocal duties, is bawling, snarling and yelping in the throatiest of fashions, and they’re resorting to some pneumatic drill riffing that makes my shoulders sag.  Then after a brief quiet section and some hammer-on-anvil chords Boland embarks on an earcatching, slithering solo admirably and flexibly backed up by the rhythm boys, an approach they laterreprise (after a bit more caterwauling) to create some dazzling patterns.  And right at the end Mckeon – I assume it’s still him – reveals that he can in, in fact, damn well sing.  In these moments of imagination I get the feeling these boys have spent a lot of time listening intently to Rush, for which I applaud them heartily.
And so it goes on.  I don’t go a bundle on the stalking vibe that opens ‘Barrow-wight’, and though the backing gets interestingly spiky as they pick up the pace, Mckeon is back in sinew-straining vocal mode – until suddenly gliding into a swoopingly melodic passage.  Boland drops in an elegant courtly guitar break that could have come from Jethro Tull or Wishbone Ash.  Then after a bit of unnecessary pounding they produce an impressively strident, discordant segment, topped off with soaring, tuneful vocals.
The shortest song here, ‘Primal Spy’, features scurrying, prickly guitar and rapid fire drums, producing a taut and urgent vibe accompanying another bout of quality vocals, and a genuinely hooky chorus.  Eventually it evolves into a different animal, finding deeper, more more gears while McCarthy hammers along like his life depends on it, until they round it off neatly.
Closing track ‘Go Forth’ saddles up with some agonised vocals and a strained melody, before they break out into a headlong rush of a riff, Mckeon more or less chanting along with it in some kind of Hades-bound mantra.  But then they dive into another excellent bridge, well-paced and melodic, with Boland making good use of chorus-type effects, for a breather before another breathless riff over which Boland lays out more excellent guitar work, with crackling tension between his lead lines and the urgent riffing.  Intricate, jack-knifing stuff likes this reminds me of Diamond Head, those head-spinning riff meisters of yore.  Which is nice.
Of course, I’m not really the audience for Snowblind.  But this once-upon-a-time wearer of a badge-adorned denim jacket says they should dial up McCarthy and Mckeon’s capacity for heavy but sinuous rhythm work as the backdrop for Boland’s spiralling, dynamic guitar work, and stick to gen-yoo-wine singing.  That way lies a seriously potent force.  Honest injun.
 
Shapes In The Trees
 is out now and can be ordered here.

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