According to English gangster lore, the scar one gets from being
\ncut ear to ear is known as a Chelsea smile. Today, it is known as a
\nLos Angeles quartet that is rapidly becoming known as former
\nAgnostic Front and Danzig member Todd Youth’s new hard rock
\nband.<\/p>\n
Recently, I caught the Chelsea Smiles live as an opener to the
\nBackyard Babies and, after the gig, I walked away knowing that I
\nhad been exposed to a band that was easily the match of the
\nheadliner I had driven five hours to see. Such a thing doesn’t
\nhappen very often in my world.<\/p>\n
Picking up their debut E.P,
\nNowhere Ride<\/i>, at the merchandise table that night, I have
\nbeen reveling in this nasty little taster of what I expect their
\nsoon-to-be released full-length album to more fully reveal. Nowhere
\nRide offers up four singles of a slightly tinged punk sound mixed
\nwith more of a straightforward rock output that sounds as good on
\nCD as it does live. With Youth, guitarist Christian Black (Dee Dee
\nRamone’s band), bassist John Martin, and drummer Karl Rosqvist
\nactually carrying the street cred from their past associations to
\nmatch their all black clothing attire, there is hope that this band
\nis built to last.<\/p>\n
The track “Action Coming Down” is the bona fide hit single when
\nCapitol gets around to releasing the album. Youth’s vocals are
\nintelligibly straightforward and melodic – more so than my personal
\nfavorite track from the album, “Freakout.” The title of the second
\nsong is more of a headstrong effort and carries more testosterone
\nthan labels usually are willing to release these days. Still,
\nthere’s nothing stiff about either these songs or the title track,
\nwhich rounds out the three original songs here.<\/p>\n
Perhaps to establish their credibility even further, the Chelsea
\nSmiles also include a cover of the New York Dolls’ “Pirate Love,”
\nwhich deflates the tempo of the rest of the album despite the fact
\nthat it’s a spot-on recording.<\/p>\n
Match all this up with the fact that the Chelsea Smiles have
\nsecured a major label contract in Capitol, this reviewer is hoping
\nthat the foundation of homogenized rock bands such as Blink 182 and
\nGood Charlotte is about to crack. Nowhere Ride comes up aces and
\nshould pave the way for the Chelsea Smiles to become a band people
\nwill become more familiar with in the near future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":27138,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7194],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-38478","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-chelsea-smiles","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38478","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=38478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38478"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38478"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}