Music > Album Reviews

The Strange Boys // Be Brave

14/05/13

“Tonight’s dinner is tomorrow’s shit,” proposes lead singer Ryan Sambol on ‘I see’, the first track of Be Brave, “so enjoy it before it stinks.” Are those the puerile ramblings a child, or the wise words of an old man who’s seen it all? Maybe both. That pretty much sums up Texan rock and rollers, The Strange Boys; they sound like a band who have listened patiently to every record made over the last forty years but then decided that they preferred things the way they used to be. "A Walk on the Beach”, with its yelped vocals and insistent rhythm guitar, should sound for all the world like The Strokes, but it doesn’t. Instead it ends up sounding more like The Velvet Underground, like a reworking of ‘I’m Waiting for The Man’. Elsewhere, most of the tracks sound like rehashings of various Blonde on Blonde era Dylan songs, but accomplished with such an indifferent attitude toward seeking originality that it would be petty to criticise them for it. That’s not to say it isn’t youthful – at times it’s even innovative – it’s just youthful from another time. Mostly the album sounds spontaneous, as if it was recorded in one session, with Sambol’s voice growing increasingly hoarse until eventually, by the last track, it sounds raw and pained, like the whining of an exhausted dog, or scratches on an old record. It is what it is. Tonight’s dinner is tomorrow’s shit, so enjoy it before it stinks.

7/10 Dan Bleksley