Shook & The Disarmers present a nice platter of traditional western style rock. Much akin to the early Sun Records catalog, which generally can never be a bad thing. Here it's definitely an asset, yet Sidelong as a whole isn't reliant upon anything of the past. It's good music, with more than a splash of heavy heart and real world experience showing through to make you sit back and take notice a time or two. Shook's voice is key to this show, though the band, taken to be The Disarmers, make the picture more complete. The guitar work is especially impressive, gliding in and out, weaving I think Keith Richards calls it, serving up mournful cries and piercing lead breaks when called for. A full package it all makes, along with great songs containing memorable melodies, it feels like a work complete. It's but a tease though at this point.
It should make you hungry for more, a yearning to feel that edge, slightly wicked, of riding that fast horse across the desert. Gold in your saddle bags, gold bud rolled, and a trail of dust along your trail far behind. When you do slow down and get all touchy feely, it tends to lose it's way, because you're driving a machine, one that seems to run the best when it's locked stepped into the clakca-clacka or one step behind the down home boogie. Like when you go to the family reunion tore up and everyone is staring at you. You may wanna hide, you may wanna put on a show. It's like that on Sidelong. At each turn it's a different number, from platin' to harvestin' to fetishes up topside, it's irish whiskey on a weekend night, and there never is a work week. Just cocktails on the lawn, another day of guitars, rhythms and wasted sunsets. It's real life man, live it!
Contact: Bloodshot Records https://www.bloodshotrecords.com