Black Rebel Motorcycle Club asked, “Whatever Happened to My Rock ‘n’ Roll?” back in 2001 and it’s a good question. Rock music has become a diluted version of itself of late, with many popular bands playing bland and mediocre at best tunes that are easily forgotten as we move on to the next internet phenomenon. We don’t see the truly debauched and up for it bands of rock’s heyday quite as often anymore. The throw away mentality that the internet has brought means that rock bands will never reach those lofty heights of such luminaries like Zeppelin or Floyd. A band really only gets fifteen minutes of fame these days. We need a proper rock band that has that larger than life persona, the fuck you attitude, the drugs to propel them into the stratosphere and of course the songs to fuel the rock ‘n’ roll in our souls!
That question comes to mind when I give The Crossfire Hurricanes new single ‘Morning After Showdown’ (released 10th October) a spin. This is a band that likes to party, I know that from doing a photo shoot with the band last year, one hour in and I was heavily relying on the autofocus function on my camera, eight hours later and we had some great photos one of which the singer Brendan was hanging off the rafters in the club we’d hired to do the shoot! This track addresses that partying head on in true rock fashion, it’s about the morning after and the troubles that can generate, we’ve all been there, this is the kind of anthem we need for such debauched evenings/mornings.
The song begins with the riff that will drive the song throughout, a fuzzy blues riff that’s instantly catchy, rolling drums bring in the drive with some neat lead accompanying. The first verse spells out exactly what is happening, it’s been a hard night of drink and drugs fuelled partying and the sun’s already up, but there’s trouble brewing, ‘Note stuck to the refrigerator, Fuck you, I’ll call you later’, that’s a line to behold right there, says it all. It’s all in here, in steadfast rock fashion, broken clocks, hooker’s numbers, cocaine and alcohol. The riff continues to drive the song slowly building the tension that compliments the lyrical content well. But then two and a half minutes in the song takes a turn into a more melancholic break down, resembling that point in the morning when it dawns on you, that party is over, it’s more considered resembling late sixties rock like The Doors, there’s a rolling bass line and staccato guitars all mixed up in a smoky haze before that familiar riff kicks it all off again. The vocals are unrepentant and you can’t help but feel that this isn’t the last of the all-nighters for this particular band as the build up reaches it’s crescendo.
This is a strikingly well put together song, the band have cited Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Pearl Jam, The Black Keys as some of their influences and that is quite apparent here, but it’s not a carbon copy of them, they are doing their own thing, and although it lacks some big production values, with tracks like this The Crossfire’s are definitely bringing that rock energy back to the forefront with balls!
