Back in the days when you were allowed out of your house and could go to gigs (they were ace and I miss them) we used to always endeavour to get to see the local support band.
Sometimes you see really good ones. Ones like Crimson Star.
I think I’d seen them before the first time I appear to have reviewed them, just over four years ago, but I’ve seen them a few times since.
They don’t seem to play every gig going like some. That’s a good thing in a way, because quality is always better than quantity, but whenever you see them you are left thinking: “crikey these have got something”.
Crimson Star really have, too.
Back in 2018, I reviewed their second EP, “Bay View” and concluded thus: “It [ the record is] a confident, classy five tracks that show a band that is coming of age. The Crimson Star is shining, and it illuminates a band that is very much on the up.”
Listening to “The Olde Dawg” I feel I am going to say something similar.
A bit has happened to them since that. A new drummer took a while to find, Chris Hopton, though, is in mighty form throughout these three songs.
Produced by Romesh Dodangoda who has worked with everyone from Motorhead to Funeral For A Friend, the thing sounds like a million dollars. There is, though, just one problem, and its not even the fault of Crimson Star.
See, a bit like the similarly superb West Midlands bands Liberty Lies and Piston, they have been around for years producing, confident classy music (in the case of Crimson Star, massive sounding alt. Rock) that when you reach around for comparisons, invariably it is for bands that weren’t really around when they started out.
Take “Living A Lie” the opener. Fabulous track that it is, right from the moment that Hopton announces himself with drums that are made for fists in the air, you want to say “Royal Blood” – and you can hear them in this, but were Royal Blood even a thing when CS started out?
Rather I am going to settle for the names of two bands I utterly adored in the late 2000’s. Exit Ten and Zico Chain. Listen to the way Jay D Shaw sings “Norma” and tell me that this is a band who doesn’t deserve so much more. These Stars are bright.
There is an energy about them, like they are bursting, desperate for these songs to be heard. The difference, this time, the title track seems ready to kick the doors down rather than stand outside looking in.
I love three piece bands – and I said that last time too. When they get it right there’s nothing better. And Crimson Star have got it right. “The Olde Dawg” is all about their new tricks, and they have never sounded better than right here, right now.
Rating 9/10
