By Monk
Pat Todd has spent decades trawling and trolling the dark corners and dusty shelves of the back alley thrift stores of Americana, picking and choosing from influences such as Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Neil Young, the Allman Boys to Tom Waits, Hank Williams to the Wilson brothers in an endeavour to distill all of his education and garnered knowledge into a single, career-defining, genre-scoffing dose of ’70s punk rock, country, blues and roots rock… in a bid to keep all the chaos at bay by producing one chaotic rock ‘n’ roll album that sums up everything he knows and has learned about the artform…
Opening with an explanation of ‘Why I Sing’, which more or summarizes what it to come in terms of Todd’s honest expressionism and integrity, as well as a defiant emphasis of both his “fuck you” attitude and his entire raison d’être, this is a collection of no-nonsense, unpretentious blue collar garage rock ‘n’ roll ‘bangers born in the heart and soul and delivered from same with equal measures of commitment and panache.
From ‘Galavantin’ his way through rambunctious rockabilly dancefloor fillers to melancholic porchstep laments about being ‘Just Another Stupid Guy’, via tales of it being all about ‘The Company You Keep’ putting the world up for sale and being sold out for the love a dollar, Todd may be a ‘Victim Of Dedication’ but what he has delivered here is a declarative ‘Tower Of Song’ (after song, after song) of classic rock ‘n’ roll songs embedded in and personifying every aspect of the music he obviously loves and appreciates so dearly.
Todd and his band of Outsiders definitely can walk the big talk, and they do so while playing some very sweet guitars.
- ‘Keepin’ Chaos At Bay‘ is out now.
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