Last weekend Slash went viral thanks to his showstopping display at the OSCARS. But he’s more than just a good judge of a football team to support (we have that in common….) he’s also willing to appear with anyone he fancies to add his customary cool all over everything.
He’s here on the standout “I’d Like To Help You With Your Problem”, and it sort of acts as a barometer for the album – The Dandy Warhols first for four years.
I’m like everyone else, I got into the band in 2001 – they released a song then you might know – and you can chalk this review up to my renewed love for Electric Six. I’ll explain:
In my head they’re inextricably linked, both famous for the big hit that had little to do with their actual sound – when their real stuff, as it were, merrily did whatever it wanted to. I saw E6 last year when they released my favourite album of 2023, hence, well “Rockmaker”.
That “do what you will” spirit still exists and it’s tattooed through “Rockmaker”, immediately from the start of “The Doomsday Bells” there’s something hypnotic and unsettling about it. Like something has gone truly wrong on the dancefloor.
“Danzing With Myself” , on which Black Francis performs a mighty cameo, is another weird offering. Like, if this is pop music then my goodness it has a dark heart,
But wasn’t that always the case with The Dandy Warhol’s? Haven’t they always made deceptively catchy, but odd music? Forget that hit. Their stock in trade is “Teutonic Wine”, which worms its way in. or the odd rockabilly thing “The Summer Of Hate” that you can’t resist, no matter how hard you try.
“The Cross” pulses with a fuzz, and “The Root Of All Evil” adds some really funky soul, together with bitingly clever lyrics, and if you can listen to “Alcohol And Cocainemarijunanicotine” without thinking of Queens Of The Stone Age, then fair do’s you’re a better man than me.
The half-spoken delivery to “Real People” has hints of The Hold Steady, but the stack harmonies are pure 70s glam rock. As if to underline not many bands think like the Dandy’s, and as if to prove they work on their own plain, then “I Will Never Stop Loving You” (on which Debbie Harry performs an incredible cameo – you may have heard of her?). Courtney Taylor-Taylor reckons that it’s the only “true love song I’ve ever written”, and that may be true, but it doesn’t half sound like it is less a ballad by the sounds of it than a threat. Those words have never carried more menace.
“Rockmaker” isn’t quite a rock album. To be truthful 100 people could listen to this and tell you what it was in a 100 different ways. What it absolutely is, however, is an album that reveals more if itself each time you listen to it.
A slightly odd, unsettling journey, but a superb one all the same.
Rating 8/10
