It’s very tempting to limit this review to the words, “Here’s another Dropkick album,” and leave it at that. Those in the know will then be rushing to their merchant of choice to purchase said album. Sadly, it seems there are still some folk who have not been exposed to the perfect power pop espoused by this Edinburgh band despite their being one of the most prolific bands around.
The guiding light and mainstay of Dropkick is Andrew Taylor, a man soaked in the chimes and jangles of classic power pop and its adjacent cousins as espoused by vintage bands such as The Byrds and Big Star along with contemporaries such as The Jayhawks and fellow Scots, Teenage Fanclub. Since 2001 and with the band ever evolving through various line-ups, Taylor has released around 20 albums and we’ve yet to hear one which doesn’t beg repeated listening and while they have developed a signature sound, each album remains unique with its own subtle fingerprint be it due to the current line up of the band or the topics that Taylor is writing about.
Primary Colours is the second album released by the current trio version of Dropkick (Taylor on vocals, guitars and drums along with Ian Grier on keyboards and bass guitar and Alan Shields on guitars and vocals). As on their previous album The Wireless Revolution, the trio are tight and somewhat more muscular than some of the previous line ups. The songs (10 in total) are all short sharp sonic treats, rarely straying beyond the three minute mark and they eschew the more bucolic elements which characterised songs such as Clouds on the last album. Taylor does turn it down a notch on the wonderful lament which is Too Much Of The Same, a halting, mainly acoustic song with a mournful harmonica solo which finds him kind of apologising for just being an ordinary guy. For the remainder of the album however, the guitars are set to stun.
The album opens with a sweeping and joyful blast of jangled pop rock on Left Behind. The words have a Gene Clark like mystique as the band glide and then totally take off around the two minute mark on an uplifting middle eight which paves the way for a perfect guitar solo which has McGuinn stamped all over it. Stick this song beside anything from The Byrds’ album Younger Than Yesterday and it stands tall beside any of them. It’s hard to beat this but the title song has a good go with a more Beatles’ like guitar charge and Till It Goes churns it up quite wonderfully with an oh so brief tangled guitar solo.
As on the previous album Al Shields gets to write and sing one of the songs, offering some contrast to Taylor’s eternal sunshine. Highs And Lows barges in with a grungy guitar rush which, along with his vocals, is reminiscent of REM back in the college rock years while it features what is perhaps the meanest, most snakelike lead guitar break on the album. They close the disc with Waiting For The Rain, another song with a drop dead gorgeous rush, glorious vocals and yet another terrific sinewy guitar break.
Primary Colours finds Dropkick in more than fettle and it’s a shame that they are not more lauded. Buy the album and spread the word, you know that makes sense. In the interim, the band will be playing songs from the album on an upcoming tour of Scotland along with a brief foray into London
7/3 – Aberdeen, Scotland
27/3 – Montrose, Scotland
28/3 – Edinburgh, Scotland
29/3 – Glasgow, Scotland
12/4 – Sutton, London, England