Rooted somewhere between a frenzied punk rock output and a more
\nstraightforward rock n’ roll sound, the Retardos accomplish what
\nmany other Scandinavian bands seem to be doing so well these days.
\nThat’s putting out a punk n’ roll album that isn’t overly complex
\nto digest and doesn’t pain the ears to listen to.<\/p>\n
\nKeep Winning<\/i> is the Retardos’ second album and reminds me of
\nanother Oslo band that disintegrated around the time this album
\ncame out — Hellride — with its unpretentious style of delivery.
\nSo, I guess this should explain former Hellride members Pete Evil
\nand Pete Bosse lending some backing vocal help on this album. (I
\nswear that I wrote the first sentence of this paragraph before I
\nfirst cracked open the CD jacket to discover my uncanny knack in
\nlinking the two bands!)<\/p>\n
Mix in the fact that the guitar tones sound as if they were
\nmagically mixed in an empty trash dumpster and the Retardos have
\nsuccessfully captivated that dirty rock n’ roll sound that has
\nrecently propelled many recent Scandinavian bands like Gluecifer,
\nthe Peepshows, and Psychopunch into the western European rock
\nscene’s stream of current consciousness.<\/p>\n
Another fact that always makes me smirk is the proclivity of
\nbands from this northern region of the world to come up with
\nsouped-up stage names that aim to cement the band’s image through
\ntheir likeness. As if there was any doubt that even the most naive
\nmusic fan couldn’t figure out the punk n’ roll correlation between
\na vocalist named Andy Apeman, a drummer named George Gorilla, and a
\nband named the Retardos while perusing the record bin, the band
\nfinds the need to take it one step further in naming the first
\nsingle “Apeman,” presumably after their singer. Good thing the song
\ndoesn’t disappoint, as there’s a good size guitar loop protecting
\nthe primitive apeman chorus.<\/p>\n
In looking back on the band’s self-titled debut and realizing
\nthat album’s spot-on punk recording, the Retardos successfully
\nthrottle back the tempo ever so slightly on the majority of songs,
\nwhich turns
\nKeep Winning<\/i> into an evolved effort despite the comically
\njuvenile tendencies I have just exposed.<\/p>\n
This evolution is punctuated by the track “Sunshine Coming Out
\nof my Ass” – a song that has that halted tempo, Fu Manchu-type
\nstoner rock backline working throughout the song. I’m not sure what
\nthe motivation for recording this track might have been because it
\nis quite the departure from anything the Retardos have done up
\nuntil this point, but admittedly, it works. As a stoner-type rock
\ntrack, I get equal sensations in matching boogie van images from
\nthe ’70s with a realization that the Kelly Leak types from the era
\nwould embrace the lyrical content the song title propagates. Good
\nwork for a group that probably doesn’t even know that Chico was
\never in the bail bond business.<\/p>\n
The rest of the album remains decidedly upbeat and is benefited
\nby the tempo arrangements commonly associated with punk n’ roll.
\nSo, I’ll dish out credit in that
\nKeep Winning<\/i> is an album title prophetic for what is heard
\non this release — namely 11 tracks that exhibit an honest, albeit
\naddictive passion to make you want to hear more. The brief (30
\nminutes) run time may just be the one shortcoming of this
\nrelease.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":26949,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7123],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-38258","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-retardos","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38258"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}