Quick Hits., Vol. 282 (Kings of Leon, Paerish, Greta Van Fleet, Dirty Honey)

Saw the lineup for Firefly Festival the other day, and I need to work through some things to think about ACL's prospective lineup.  Firefly wasn't very interesting - mostly things that ACL has already had recently - Billie Eilish, The Killers, Tame Impala, Lizzo - feels like we just did those.  I'm hopeful that ours says Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, Taylor Swift, and R.E.M., instead.

Kings of Leon - When You See Yourself.  Oh, my sweet brothers of rock and roll.  So glad you are back and not doing anything weird or techno-ey or whatever.  This is the straight-forward business that sounds just like it should.  Slightly whiny vocals, rock solid drumming, slightly funky bass lines, soaring guitars, all wrapped up in that unmistakably KOL sound.  "The Bandit" is a great tune - catchy and hits on all cylinders.  God, why does "Sex on Fire" have so many streams.  715 million freaking streams for that dumb ass song...  Anyway, "The Bandit" is winning the stream wars on this album for now with 14.2 million.

The introductory music just sounds so quintessentially like this band.  Super good.  "Must catch the bandit!"  The lyrics make no sense to me, but the feel of the track is right on.  "Golden Restless Age" keeps sticking it to me as well.  As you can see from this review, I'm not talking about any new, groundbreaking direction, but that's not I want from these guys anyway.  Loving it.

Paerish - Fixed It All.  I'm not sure if their last album was my album of the year when it came out, but I will absolutely cop to being relatively obsessed with it for a good long while.  Semi Finalists from 2016 is a purely badass blast of crunchy, fun, catchy rock.  "Undone" was dope, "Winona Ryder" is great, and I just loved the whole thing.  This five year gap in new tunes is lame, but I don't really know how French bands work.  They may have needed to go serve in the Foreign Legion for 4 years before they could make new music.  I dunno.  But, for the most part, this album sticks in the same zone.  There are a few moments I could do without where they go the Linkin Park scream-o route (looking at you, "You & I"), but otherwise this is good stuff.  The title album is the top streamer, but I want you to hear the second place one - "Violet."  252k streams.

Sounds like a song I should run to.  The confusing bit to me is that the song is called "Violet," and yet the lyric about half-way through says "Hey Charlotte, how are things for you?"  They never say the name Violet.  Are they trying to mess with me?  And with the video, that lady is super good at roller skating but what does that have to do with anything?  If I was that car at 1:55, waiting at the bridge for her to stop her interpretative skate dancing, I would have been super pissed.  Unless the band was there and like shook my hand or something, because these dudes rule at their job and that would be worth getting stuck at a bridge while a skinny lady goes full Napoleon Dynamite on skates.

Greta Van Fleet - The Battle at Garden's Gate.  I know some people will make fun of me for loving these guys, but this album is great.  Look, I understand the three basic issues with their music:

They are derivative.  I know they are stealing the schtick of someone who came before them.  But so what?  I can love Led Zeppelin and Wolfmother.  I can love The Struts and Queen.  I can love early Tame Impala and the Beatles.  I can love Gary Clark Jr. and Stevie Ray Vaughan. I can love Lenny Kravitz and Jimi Hendrix.  I can love old Coldplay and old Radiohead.  I can love Royal Blood and cleopatrick.  The Black Keys have made a killing off of yanking old blues riffs and classic 60's guitar rock sounds into the modern age without apology.  I don't understand the vitriol for trying to make new music that sounds like something classic.  More importantly for me, personally, the instrumentation on these tracks is fucking rock solid.  If you are a fan of the basic guitar, bass, drums setup of classic rock, then these guys are doing the damn thing.

The lead singer sounds like a dying rabbit.  Yeah, I get that some people may dislike the lead singer's voice.  He uses registers that few dare to leap to.  But not everyone was a fan of Robert Plant (or hell, Geddy Lee, or Axl Rose, or Michael Stipe, or Jack White, or Willie Damn Nelson) - and as I listen, I'm actually mentally comparing him more to Lee than Plant.  But when I think about replacing his vocal fireworks with something less interesting, I don't see the band being as interesting.  Like, the thought of Bob Dylan taking over and muddling through the lyrics in an atonal whine - just doesn't work.  And if the lyrics were all song in an entirely understandable way within a common range, how much fun would that be?  I just don't see how anyone can quibble with the tunes going on behind them.  These dudes are legit on their respective instruments and are making a great classic rock sound.  

The lyrics are pretentious.  The other issue people have is with the lyrics.  And again, man, you're talking about a genre with massive hits that have outrageously silly lyrics, but that take themselves seriously.  Obviously, "Yellow Submarine" or "Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida" are intentionally silly.  But Zeppelin singing some shit about Lord of the Rings?  The entirety of Creed's lyrics?  Van Halen as a whole?  Train?  311 singing that "amber is the color of your energy?"  Sting just punting the chorus on behalf of the Police for "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da?"  Steve Miller mentioning that some people call him "Maurice?"  Muse?  "Jack & Diane?"  "You Get What You Give?"  "Dust in the Wind?"  Oh, freaking "The Trees" from Rush?  "There is trouble in the forest, and the creatures all have fled! As the maples scream oppression, and the oaks just shake their heads."  Pretension abounds in rock lyrics.  So, if these guys need to sing some clunkers like “There are so many people. Some are much younger people and some are so old.” "And the planet is still turning, And the faces are still burning, And the mothers with their children, Search for the rain." or "God machine, Malfunctioned as it grew, And the circuits blew, Falling down on you, Now you're free, Unplug from the source, No more underscores, Open up the doors."  Mmmkay.  BUT, that last actual track, for "Age of Machine" sounds dope as hell!  

I noted the other day that one of these tracks - "My Way, Soon" actually sounds like the instrumental for a Pearl Jam song that would have been at home on Vs.  Of course, it starts with that first line, an observation about the fact that humans have ages.  The streaming hit is "Age of Machine," so here you go.  5.3 million streams.

Like, if the lead singer's weird ass wail wasn't slowly added to the mix in the opening portion, would it even be the same song?  Or just a Soundgarden dirge about suicide?  Actually, that's a good comp here - Chris Cornell used to wail like a crazy person, over the top of heavy rock instrumentation, and yet he was well-loved (I think?).  I think this is just what the internet does now - needlessly hypes one thing (looking at you Drake) into oblivion, and then snarks the next thing to death.  And so, while I get that some people may think this sounds goofy, and dated, and copycattish, but I will stand by the fact that if you just let yourself enjoy something instead of being a prick, you'll find so much pleasure in the world.

Dirty Honey - Dirty Honey.  Fascinating band.  Never heard of them before, I literally listened to the album because the cover looked cool.  They made big, juicy, 70's-ass lips out of dripping honey that also spells their band name.  Speaking of my conversation above about being derivative, these guys sound kind of like Guns N' Roses met up with the Black Crowes for a jam session.  Which sounds kinda awesome, right?  The big hit is "California Dreamin'" and, without even seeing the video yet, I feel like there is no way that it isn't shots of them cruising Sunset Strip in a convertible with models and then playing the tune in a sun-dappled warehouse.   This one is the most GNR of them all, and has 659k streams.

Okay, muscle car instead of convertible, and eighty random locations in CA instead of just Sunset, but the model is there!  And they're jamming the song in a junk yard that is definitely sun-dappled!  Guitarist on the sand dunes - didn't Slash have a scene like that in a video?  Pretty solid riffage right there.  I'd abso-damn-lutely pump my fist and yell those lyrics into a crowd at ACL in a few months.  (even if, on further inspection as I sang this song while walking the dog, WTF do these lyrics mean?  "I'm California dreamin', and it's tearing us apart, It's paranoia season, it's in our mind and our hearts."  So, if California Dreamin' a bad thing to do?  Is your girlfriend mad about it or something?  Is she actually paranoid about your dreams of CA?  This makes no sense.)

"Take My Hand" sounds like an Audioslave ripoff.  "Gypsy" sounds like Appetite-era GNR.  The guitar riffs in chorus portion of "The Morning" sound like the Van Halen song "Finish What You Started."  "Another Last Time" is the most Black Crowes-y of them all.  Whatever man, I dig it.