There’s certainly a lot happening on Darcee Fox’s long-awaited debut album ‘Islands’ and after a few spins it seems, yet again, Australia has produced the goods in the gritty, bluesy, rock ‘n’ roll stakes.
Wonderfully hard to categorize, there’s certainly a lot of influences at play here but along with those sited – the Led Zeppelin, Guns n’ Roses, David Bowie & The Rolling Stones that let’s be honest most bands throw in there, there’s also an underground feel that isn’t a million miles away from those Seattle forerunners to Pearl Jam ‘Mother Love Bone’ who took those formative seventies influences and blew them up, gathering the pieces as they fell. Like any example of course it’s not perfect, Darcee Fox isn’t as grandiose as that Seattle cohort, but they do love a guitar solo or three and create a sound that is both warm and familiar and yet spiky enough to feel refreshingly ‘current’.
As openings to albums go I love the title track, the somewhat grittier, vaguely hypnotic ‘Dead Skin’ and the wonderful ‘Out of the Rain’ which seems to bring everything together nicely. It’s all been rather a long tie coming though – forming in 2010 and releasing a first EP in 2012its been a further 5 years before this debut long-player and to be honest the quality and consistency of materialpresumably written and honed over the years shows: this is a classy release.
Previous singles ‘Junkyard Queen’ and ‘Homebound’ both appear here too- the former a swaggering appropriation of seventies blues rock for the new millennium and the latter a softer side of the same shiny coin. They’re both songs that could grace any stadium stage. Elsewhere there’s huge riffs, massive drums and soaring melodies spilling out everywhere – and those Les Paul solos creep in at every opportune moment.
You’ll love the forcefulness of ‘Teeth’ – aggressive as it comes here and not a hint of frills; there’s also the more intricate ‘Night Owl’ – an almost six minute mini-epic that leaves that door nicely open; the AC/DC styled ‘Wanderlust’ and the throwback to the birth of Rock and Roll that is ‘Coils’.
This is simply great Rock and Roll.
