YOURZ
The Datsuns brand of rock picks me up and drops me right back into my teen years, where summer days stretched out deliciously, skateboards were thick, the roads were smooth as glass and the waves were just perfect for body surfing. Okay, maybe it wasn't all as great as this but my memories won't have it any other way.
This is the soundtrack in rock's revival tent, where the hair is long and the hands all throw up the devil's horns. It is how rock should be remembered, not as a lumbering beast with too many serious faces but as a raucous, screaming-crazy mofo who won't ever stop being the life of the party and refuses, for one second, to be taken seriously.
As bad as the world seems some days, I thank fuck for bands like The Datsuns to remind me of just how good it can be too.
VERDICT: TURN IT UP as loud as it can go until the neighbours call the cops
MINE
Why is it that I can hear Audioslave and feel like it's derivative junk, and yet The Datsuns full-throttle rawk just makes me smile? It's certainly more on the pop side of rock, which is always better in my book, but there's no glorifying it: this CD doesn't do anything new for music.
What it does do is open with blistering, balls-to-the-wall rock - and doesn't let up till the last notes have died away. While it's not the sort of music I'd play on any occasion, I'm sure it could help me get ready to go out for a night on the town. It's weird - the screamingness of the lead vocals doesn't bother me at all. Maybe I'm just discounting it - New Zealanders can't possibly really be that angry, they live in too nice a place.
VERDICT: TURN IT UP
