Shake, Rattle and Roll – Dynamos (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

Well, that’s a bit of a relief, this latest release from Dynamos isn’t a cover of the Big Joe Turner rock’n’roll classic. Not that I have anything against the Kansas City blues shouter, it is just that I think in this day and age, all right minded music scribblers need to be spending more time helping promote, support and give space to rising, original acts before the world is taken over by TV show chancers, marketing department dictated wannabes and a wave of rose tinted nostalgia. Think of us music writers as the environmental activists of the arts and culture scene.

But a cover this isn’t, instead it is a slinky pop-rock amalgam, built of iconic, low slung and sleazy guitar lines, instantly accessible hook lines and a vocal delivery forged of sass and confidence. I say “pop”-rock, as even though almost every thread, every musical passage and certainly the guitar wig-out which pushes the song over the line uses building blocks from the school of rock, it is also clean, tight and accessible, indeed palatable enough for the mainstream audience yet edgy enough to pick up the young stadium rock following. Sounds like the best of both worlds to me.

This isn’t the band you find firing off garage blues salvos in some seedy backroom bar where you stick to the carpet and are scared to use the restroom, this is a band on an altogether steeper trajectory, and why not think big? After all, their music does.