Ex-Georgia Satellite and Yayhoo, Dan Baird thumps into view here with a solid, traditional album packed full of raucous rockers that leap from the speakers demanding you turn up the sound and boogie on down. With Warner Hodges (from Jason and the Scorchers) on gutbellied guitar duties, this is old fashioned fun, the songs bludgeon the listener, the sound is full and live, warts and all with no studio gimmickry to be seen.
With 14 songs crammed into 60 plus minutes, there's a lot to digest here. While the majority are high octane rockers, there are moments when the band throttle back ("Lazy Monday") and even let some acoustic guitar into the mix. The main dish on the menu, however, is piledriving rock. Whether it be the Crazy Horse sludge of "Crooked Smile" and "I Know what It's Like" or the blues hollerin "Well Enough" which sounds like Steve Marriot reincarnated, it's obvious that this is a band who know how to rock and have a great deal of fun. Live these songs could probably kill. Perhaps the best of all is "Champagne Sparkle" - a triumph from start to finish - that recalls a young Todd Rundgren marrying vocal harmonies with heavy metal thunder.
There are some longeurs. Baird cedes vocal duties to bassist Keith Christopher on "She Dug Me Up" - a relatively uninspired strut through a man done wrong song. Hodges takes vocals on "I Can Do Without You" but can't compete with Baird's weathered sound on the rest of the album.
"Play loud" used to be emblazoned on the covers of some rock vinyl back in the day. Can't actually see it on the (very nice) CD packaging here so I recommend that you buy the album and a rubber stamp in order that you can rectify this omission.