UTK Home Page |
 |
Daredevils
launch CD with show
Artist: The
Westside Daredevils
Album: all things small produce a spark
Label: self-released
The Westside Daredevils released its debut album, all things small
produce a spark, with a show at the Pilot Light on Saturday night.
Spark is all about melody and harmony with an edgy twist.
Lacking the insipid harmony that is traditionally linked to modern boy
bands, the Daredevils are much more like early Beatles meets Ben Folds.
Formed in 2000 by co-frontmen Brett Cassidy and Jeff Caudill, lead
guitarist Gray Comer, drummer Morrie Rothstein and bassist Brandon Smith,
the Knoxville-based Daredevils have fused talents to produce spark.
Scarcely 40 minutes long, the album is indeed small, and yet the band
doesn't let a second go unlit.
The rock/pop chords flow almost fluidly from beginning to end with
songs like "Andrea" and "She's a disguise." Like most Lennon/McCarthy
lyrics, some of the Daredevil's lines seem like nonsense, but they are
catchy when overlaid with electric guitar strokes and congruent drum
beats. Other songs just need a closer inspection.
In "London Forces," the Daredevils sing of the death and rebirth of a
wild child against a backdrop of suburbia: "Penelope waits outside making
love where it shouldn't be/ and everyone looks on as she points her wand
at me/ Girl, the summer sun goes with you when it's cold outside."
But the upbeat pop vibe is broken up twice in the course of spark. In
the subdued "Mind's Cold Sweat," the band abruptly slows to sing of love
and departure. An acoustic guitar and soft piano accompany a lone voice
that laments, "No, I don't think we'll ever be even/ I couldn't breathe
enough for the both of us to say/ I'm Leaving."
In "Miner's Shortwave," the band seems to express the melancholy of
anonymity that its album title tries to overcome. The song opens with the
despairing line, "Drop a charge down a well/ all things small refuse to
sell/ never hear the warning bell as the blast hits."
Yet a voice emerges from the oblivion - "Now you're back in the dark/
all things small produce a spark/ just can't wait for the bark/ Flip the
on switch/ and you'll spread your message through the air/ that you'd love
to share."
In the end, the band tops the album just as it began, with catchy
lyrics, keyboards and guitars united in a final song that is just under a
minute and a half.
It's so small, but no less than a striking spark that is only the
beginning for this talented local band.
Rating: A
| |||||||||||||
|
©Copyright
The Daily Beacon | |||||||||||||||