I always knew that there was something a bit special about Rhett Repko. If Where You Ever Really Mine? hinted at the eclectic and adventurous nature of his musical thought process, this new offering really hammers that point home. Last time out he played with nothing less than pop reinvention, a slick re-presentation and the perfect singer-songwriter make over, Thnx For the Ride (not sure I approve of the wilful misspelling though!) however, pushes those genre-hopping ideas a lot further.
Acoustic normality is soon subsumed by big, stadium rock guitars, which in turn get overtaken by reggae beats and if that wasn’t enough, around the edges club culture electronica add wonderful musical motifs and unexpected detail.
Yet again, Repko and his forward thinking troubadours subvert expectation. Pop-rock…or in this case rock that is happy to embrace the popular market with open arms, is a wide genre. But whereas most who make music under its generic umbrella seem content to either polish the rough edges off the usual rock sound or merely pump up the muscle of a pop song to create impact, Repko shows that he is happier conducting music gene splicing experiments and if not creating a whole new musical genre at least show that those generic boundaries never really counted for much in the first place.
Hey Dave! Thank you so much for this incredible review and also a very belated thanks for your earlier review of “Were You Ever Really Mine?”. You can’t imagine how meaningful it is to me to see that you completely understand our music. It’s thrilling. Thanks again!
Hi Rhett, not a problem, getting new, original music to a wider audience is what the website is all about so if I can get a couple more people turned on to your music then that is my job done.
[…] least cynical journalists and their jaded perceptions, the brace of songs that I have got to know Rhett through over the last few months has been exactly what I needed to restore my faith in pop music. […]