The
last show I saw was Corrosion of Conformity in December 2012, the last one
before that must have been about five or six years earlier. Aside from hating crowds and still feeling
the burn of dozens of awful performances, I just don’t feel much like going out
in public in my old age. Did I mention I hate
crowds? However, discovering that one of
the best classic / hard / stoner rock bands in the world is operating right
under your nose ought to be enough to drag anybody out of doors, including this
curmudgeon, and so it was. To my mind, local band La Chinga is
a must-see. I made a kind of resolution
to see them any chance I get and waited patiently for them to play one of my nights off work. I didn’t have long to wait as that night ended
up being Saturday February 15.
Before
the show however, I just had to look into the opening band, The Electric
Revival because I’d never heard of them before. I hoped that if they were
good enough to share the stage with La Chinga, then they’d be good enough for
me. Fortunately, they were. In fact, they’re better than ‘good enough’,
I’ve been digging the hell out of these dudes.
It took about 10 seconds of this video before I realized these guys were
awesome and downloaded the album immediately from itunes. I have my regrets in life, but grabbing 'Pirate Radio' isn't one of them.
The
Electric Revival is a power trio from Calgary, Alberta, a revelation of energy,
instrumental wizardry and facial hair. Their
latest album ‘Pirate Radio’ was self-released last summer but was recently
re-launched by Cruzar Media who are helping to put a little added muscle behind
the promotion of it. The Electric Revival
plays a punked-up style of bluesy rock n roll which shares a little something
in common with ‘De Stijl’ or ‘White Blood Cells’ era White Stripes. But the story is bigger and heavier than
that. This is classic rock cranked up
with fiery eyed focus, old time blues with a rocket strapped to its ass.
It’s
not all head down riff mongering though.
There’s a quiet side to the band too.
The band pretty much lays it all on the line on opening track “Got To
Be”. The song starts off with a killer
riff, gigantic and stony, just the way you like it, before it gears down a
notch for the verse wherein is revealed the falsetto croon of vocalist /
guitarist Ian Dillon, a voice which belies his mountain man look and large
presence. Tearing down for the verse the
band builds back up again to peak on the chorus. As a vocalist, Dillon is damn near
hysterical, not screaming exactly but occupying a thin space adjacent to. In short, this is a band that understands
dynamics and how to manipulate them. That ‘quiet side to the band’ consists largely
of marshalling forces for the next big throw down, which is always right around
the bend.
The
next pair of cuts “Poison Apple” and “Hell Hath No Fury” carries over the
momentum built up on the opening track, and charges full speed ahead without so
much as a pause for breath. By this
point the excitement reaches fever pitch.
Demolition derby tempos stumble into syncopated choruses and it’s a
thing of beauty. Hooks are second nature
to Electric Revival, there isn’t a single track on this album that doesn’t pay
off with a big, memorable moment. “Jean
Anne” is propelled by a killer groove courtesy of bassist Daniel Toews then
flattened out and crushed by a double time shift and raucous riff during the
chorus. That's how this band rolls.
Without
a doubt, the big showstopping number is closing track (and live closing number)
“See That My Grave Be Kept Clean”. This
is the most dynamic song of them all. If
you missed the video on the Hour of Power you can watch it below. It’s an exciting song that rises and falls
with a huge central riff. Make this one or "Got To Be" your introduction to the band.
It
all comes from the blues. If you look
back historically, most of the legendary bands started out playing blues
standards before expanding on the formulae to reach Olympian heights of rock n
roll. How does a band go from “I Can’t
Quit You Baby” to “Kashmir”? Because it’s
all in there, all in the blues, it just takes a little digging around to find
it. Electric Revival are such
diggers.
Though
it’s a rock n roll cliché to say the album doesn’t even do the band justice and
they are a must-see live band, it holds true in the case of Electric
Revival. Live, Toews is like a force of
nature, a staggering whirlwind of flying hair and low end grooves. Drummer Dallas Lobb is the closest thing to a
real-life Animal I’ve seen in a rock band, a burl-infested blast, one would
think madness itself is approaching from all sides and he must fend it off from
his stationary position. Frontman Ian
Dillon is the eye of the storm, the genius behind the fury. The spirit of experimentation and constant
digging is on him, like grass and mud stains.
It
turns out the itunes download of the album only tells two thirds of the
story. After the show I was given a copy
of the album on CD which features about 20 minutes worth of hidden tracks which
count down in between songs. The extra
material doesn’t feel tacked on either.
Take the fully-fleshed out uptempo rocker “Of This Darkness” for
example, which plays between “Underground Queen” and the hyper-bluesy “I Will
Kill You”. This isn’t throwaway
material, in fact, once you’ve heard the full hour long version of the album,
it’s hard to go back to the stripped down itunes version. The 40 minute version of the album is 10
tracks of no nonsense songwriting and keeps a wicked pace, but the bonus
material showcases the depths of the band’s ideas from theramin induced space
sounds to full songs, the impact of the album as a whole is only strengthened.
For
Paranoid readers in Canada, I highly recommend seeing the band live on their
current cross-country ‘Skeletour’. Most
of the shows are on party nights (weekends), and while the BC leg of the tour is over, they’ve still got a long ways to travel.
Come on out and see them because they put on a great show. Check out the upcoming dates:
February
21 – CALGARY (Broken City)
February
22 – INNISFAIL (The Zoo)
February
28 – SASKATOON (Rock Bottom)
March
1 – WINNIPEG (The Zoo)
March
3 – TORONTO (Cadillac Lounge)
March
4 – TORONTO (The Piston)
March
5 – MONTREAL (Caf Chaos)
March
6 – OTTAWA (Avant Garde Bar)
March
7 – TORONTO (The Central)
March
8 – TORONTO (Cherry Cola’s)
Highlights include: "Got To Be" and "See That My Grave Be Kept Clean"
Rating: 4.5/5
Tracklist:
1). Got To Be (3:43)
2). Poison Apple (3:22)
3). Hell Hath no Fury (3:06)
4). Jean Anne (2:37)
5). Underground Queen (3:44)
6). I Will Kill You (4:55)
7). St. James Infirmary (3:12)
8). Change of Season (2:08)
9). The Hero (3:19)
10). See That My Grave Be Kept Clean (8:19)
Total Run Time: 38:21 / CD version 59:56
Genre: Hard Rock, Blues
Reminds me of: Black Crowes, Dixie Witch, Infernal Overdrive, La Chinga, Satan's Satyrs, The White Stripes
Release Date: February 14, 2014
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