Quickies - Austin Gold, Tuk Smith & The Restless Hearts, and Dirty Honey

Lend me your ears, citizens - it’s time to catch up with a triple whammy of rocking sounds that I’ve got on board with recently.
 
Austin Gold – Ain’t No Saint
 
Crikey – suddenly we’re on to the fourth album by English melodic hard rockers Austin Gold, and the blighters stillhaven’t managed to break through to the level they deserve.  Shurely shomething wrong, I say, after getting my ears around Ain’t No Saint.
Title track ‘Ain’t No Saint’ is a mini-epic that sets out their stall big time.  The intro teases with subtle shining-on-crazy-diamonds guitar and keys, leading into a tense, pulsing section with breathy vocals from main man David James Smith, before fairly exploding into a crunching riff

Austin Gold - mean, moody, and melodic

embellished by swirling keys from Adam Leon, Smith’s urgent vocals and trilling lead guitar then cranking up even more pressure.
‘The Wire Defines’ follows, another bracing whack to the shell-likes, but a stylish one. Borne in on a tough riff and waves of organ, it then reveals AG's more melodic side on the AOR-styled verses, before crashing into a shout-along chorus.  Dave Smith is one of those standout singers who really grabs your attention, and between that, the surging organ and searing lead guitar, they have moments of Magnum-like grandeur.
Chief songwriter Smith is an avowed Beatles-nut. So there’s an undercurrent of Fab Four melodic sensibility on the likes of ‘Not Enough’, with its tender vocals, spangly guitar, and elegant harmonies, and also in the verses of ‘Hang Fire’, a bright and bopping affair on which those lighter verses give way to blasts of organ colliding with a big, tumbiing riff, until Smith’s wiry guitar break goes stratospheric over James Pepper’s snapping beat.
They can slow things down too, as the conversational ballad ‘End Of Our Song’ demonstrates, Smith impressing with restrained and sensitive guitar work before it gets impassioned to close.  And ‘Return’, which closes the album proper, is another widescreen outing combining flutters of bluesy guitar, aching Floyd grandeur and late period Beatles.
Picking out some other rocking highlights,  ‘Down & Outs’ is organ-drenched, with an anthemic, clap-along riff, good quiet-loud dynamics, and Smith showing off his terrific vocal range, backed by equally impressive harmonies. And if ‘Hold The Anchors’ makes a humble entrance, it then lets loose with a strident, crashing riff, soon matched by another huge chorus, with an intriguing lyric about having to make a stand in the face of challenges.
There are three bonus tracks if you want to splash out on the deluxe version, on which they seem to have experimented with a few different bells and whistles to good effect.  Which is encouraging, though there really should be enough in the ten tracks of the main album to get Austin Gold the attention they merit.  If you like hard rock of the diamond-sharp variety, seek it out.
 
Ain’t No Saint is out now, and can be ordered here.
 
 
Tuk Smith & The Restless Hearts – Rogue To Redemption
 
Take a pint of Cheap Trick, a shot or three of Thin Lizzy guitar stylings and Phil Lynott phrasing, a dash of Brian May pomp and circumstance, and a sprinkling of glam rock glitter – et voila, you’ve got something close to the sound of Tuk Smith & The Restless Hearts!
The Cheap Trick resemblance reverberates right from the start with ‘Take The Long Way’, in so far as Tuk Smith’s voice is a dead ringer for Robin Zander, and he also deploys some twittering, ‘dream policing’ synth sounds.  More importantly though – even more important than the Lizzy-

Tuk Smith - he may not look glam, but he sounds it

like guitar harmonising turn – is that it’s simply a great song, with the first of numerous irresistible choruses, and typical Smith lyrics like “C’mon shoot me with some truth, I know hearts ain’t bulletproof.”
Then Smith and his pals Nigel Dupree (drums) and Matt 'Pony Boy' Curtis (bass) show that was no fluke with ‘Glorybound’ , its throbbing verses exploding into a mountainous, magnificent, roar-along chorus.  And they follow that with an imperious ‘End Of An Era’, which starts with a Brian May-toned guitar line, and is imbued with the bitter-sweet spirit, if not the sound, of Mott’s ‘Saturday Gigs’.  It features some needle-sharp Smith guitar punctuation and a neo-glam rock anthemic chorus that is - of course - a killer.
And so it goes on, across all nine tracks and 32 minutes, with Smith spewing out lyrics of underdog romance, like Rocky getting up off the canvas round after round until he can scream for Adrienne, all set to a rollicking, glam-tinged garage rock soundtrack.  ‘Little Renegade’ conjures up another stonking chorus, over a riff that rings like the bells of, er, St Trinians.  Oh, alright - Notre Dame.  ‘Blood On The Stage’ is a plaintive mash-up of ‘Wonderwall’ acoustic strumming and Def Leppard getting love bitten.  (It’s worth remembering that Leppard’s Joe Elliott is also a glam-rock fan.)  And ‘Rogue To Redemption’ comes with a Lizzy-like stop-time riff and more guitar harmonies, verses in thrall to Phil Lynott phrasing, and a soaring chorus.
It’s all topped off with the glam-rock romance of ‘When The Party’s Over’, a simple descending riff laying the foundations for another Cheap Trick-meets-Mott The Hoople thriller.
I’m reminded of the lines in the eponymous album by Boston’s The Peppermint Kicks (another rock'n'roll reference point): “I write the songs that try to please you, Something stolen, something borrowed”.  Tuk Smith is on the same page - a rock’n’roll magpie, cheerfully plundering the sounds of his heroes to spectaculr effect.  If I’d got hold of Rogue To Redemption when it was released back in August, I’d probably have drooled over it at greater length.  Still, you’ve got the message now, right?
 
Rogue To Redemption is out now.
 
 
Dirty Honey – Can’t Find The Brakes
 
Can’t Find The Brakes is a year old this month.  Sorry about that n’all, but it only crossed my path the other month, when I came across the opening track ‘Don’t Put Out The Fire’ on YouTube, and decided it had enough blues-rock soul’n’guts about it to warrant further investigation.
Listening to ‘Don’t Put Out The Fire’ now, it still justifies my enthusiasm.  It’s got a bluesy opening, a funky strutting groove, and vocalist Marc Labelle adds equal servings of soulfulness and raunch.  With ear-grabbing descending chords underlining a well-hooky chorus, it’s a butt-shaking belter.

Dirty Honey - hello to you too, chaps

Pic by Richie Davis

They keep up the good work on ‘Won’t Take Me Alive’.  Here, as on much of the album, there’s less of a Paul Rodgers soulful rock sound, as Dirty Honey make more like Aerosmith. And to be fair, the quasi-Zeppish funkiness of the twisting’n’turning riff, over more tasty grooving from Justin Smolian on bass and Jaydon Bean on drums, notches up another winner, especially with the bonus of some sinuous guitar lines from John Notto.
They don’t keep up the strike rate from gun to tape though. ‘Roam’ is a pretty stereotypical rock ballad with a big chorus, though Notto does give it some depth with an evocative guitar solo shot.  A better slowie vein is the acoustic-centred ‘Coming Home (Ballad Of The Shire)’, with its tasteful melody embellished by some neat twists, and moody post-chorus guitar.
They’re better when they rock, methinks, with a likeable early Aerosmith vibe to ‘em. So ‘Get A Little High’ has a bit of a Zep-leaning stutter to its verses, paired with a simple chorus, while Notto's slippin’n’sliding guitar interpolations and Smolian’s elasticated bass add extra seasoning.  ‘Can’t Find The Brakes’ is short and sweet, bouncing energetically around another good spiralling riff.  And ‘Ride On’ has a cowbell-tapping, blues-rocking energy to go with its lurching riff, clattering along pleasingly with a top-down, wind-in-the hair vibe.
On closing song ‘Rebel Son’, the longest track on the album, they aim for something more elaborate, piquing interest with good changes of pace and push-and-pull tension, but all in all it feels like the whole is less than the sum of its parts.
Dirty Honey have got a lot going for them.  Labelle is a strong vocalist and front man, and the musicianship is great all round.  When they’re good they’re really very good – they just need a bit more consistency.  Keep an ear out for ‘em.
 
Can’t Find The Brakes is out now on Dirt Records.