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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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Darediablo
Twenty Paces\r\n(Southern Records)
By Justin Press
Like mighty instrumental rock bands of yore, Darediablo goes where few groups dare nowadays and relies solely on its musical prowess — and not some emoting howl — to get the message across. And for most of Twenty Paces, the message is simple: Mead for all my men!
Darediablo’s sound is a shifty kind of organ-and-guitar rock/funk not heard since the mid-1970s (when Deep Purple’s Burn lorded over the charts). It’s not progressive rock but a gumbo of soulful thunder permeated by weed smoke and shot through with the crackle of static à la early FM radio. Tracks like “Batten Down The Hatches” and “Apache Chicken” are gloriously stoner rock-ish, all fuzzed-out barre chords in drop-D tuning plus swirling Hammond B-3 keys to fill in the blanks. “The Bells of Goliad” (which the liner notes say was inspired by Monty Python’s Holy Grail) carves up the implied darkness with razor-wire guitar solos and robust bursts of drums on the funeral march. And on “Papier Mâché Miracle,” the Darediablos prove they’re not gonna pass on the chance to push a Moog synthesizer to its rockingest potential. They pit a heavy, six-string riff that’s half earthy crunch and half venomous bluegrass against the kind of oddly shaped pianistic figure that launched a thousand Gary Numan rip-offs. The imagery on this and all of Twenty Paces’ tracks is so vivid, you don’t even need lyrics to follow the stories. The only voice this band needs is the one that says, “Tape is rolling.”
Please do not confuse what the four guys in Darediablo do with anything “jam band-ish” — all of the songs on Twenty Paces are black beauties to the Grateful Dead’s hash brownies. —
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