Dirty Sweet play bluesy retro-rock that fits their name perfectly; their début album … Of Monarchs And Beggars is full of warmly fuzzed guitars, tasty pentatonic hooks and memorable choruses, but it never descends into cheesy homage.
Nor do Dirty Sweet play the post-modern pastiche card. The songs on … Of Monarchs And Beggars have an element of playful humour to them - as in the chorus of “Delilah”, where they beg the girl named in the title to return their faded blue jeans – but there are also numbers that ooze authenticity and genuine emotion. “Long Line Down” is a mournful country-rock lament, the sound of loss drowned in bourbon with a descending chord progression and vocal harmony that’ll follow you around for hours afterwards.
Dirty Sweet are damned fine musicians. Metal purists and shred-heads might turn their noses up at the loose and groovy blues and country licks that run right through … Of Monarchs And Beggars, but they’re missing the point. Dirty Sweet have gone back to the roots of rock and tapped into the emotional power that made the genre so powerful and popular in the first place.
… Of Monarchs And Beggars isn’t just ten versions of the same song, either. Dirty Sweet have genuine song-writing range within their chosen sphere, able to deliver the melancholic tunes side by side with beer-soaked roadhouse rock’n'roll stompers like “Sixteen” without ever sounding strained or false.
In fact, the only fault I could pick with … Of Monarchs And Beggars is its time of release. It sounds like the sort of album that should arrive just as the tail end of spring is twitching into summer, so you could play it loudly on long car journeys to the beach or a festival, windows rolled down and singing to the other cars with a big grin on your face. No matter – I’m still going to be listening to Dirty Sweet by the time the warmer weather rolls around … and probably long beyond then, as well.
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Posted in Music reviews |
Tags: blues, blues-rock, retro-rock, rock, rock'n'roll
