Sabrejets (the) – The Restless Kind
Raucous Records – RAUCD288 [2021]
You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone – Hell Yeah! – Tennessee Flat Top Bop – If I Gotta Explain – Faster Than The Eye Can See – Lightnin’ – Blue Moon Baby – Don’t Turn Your Back On Love – I Got The Shakes – Train To Hell – Zorita – Someone’s On The Loose – You Don’t Love Me – Storm In A D-Cup – The Restless Kind
The Sabrejets from Belfast have been on the Rock’n’Roll scene for some time now. But time doesn’t seem to have a hold on them, and the band is still just as creative, energetic and biting, to say the least.
Their new album, appropriately named the Restless Kind, is clear proof of this. This record demonstrates that with almost 70-year-old recipes drawn from Johnny Burnette and Chuck Berry (to name just two), one can produce a powerful and inventive Rock’n’Roll album. Because it is Rock’n’Roll that we are talking about, the real deal, the unadulterated and original one. The dangerous version, always on the edge, not this bastardized version that the media tries to sell us. I let you put here the names you want, there are too many, and I don’t have the time or the desire to dive into it. I prefer to talk about the Sabrejets, which give back their letters of nobility to this music. They approach it in a pure and straightforward way, and if I were not afraid that it would be taken pejoratively, I would say naive. We have four guys who know their stuff and play this music, not because they hope to sell records or gather huge crowds, but because it runs in their blood. It’s obvious from the first track that grabs you right away. Throughout the fifteen songs, one can hear references, a bit of Burnette in one intro, the same kind of tension as in Johnny Horton’s I’m Comin’ Home in another, or the Meteors’ aggressiveness a little further, but the result is always 100% Sabrejets. It’s always exciting, and it never feels like a band on autopilot each time our interest is revived, either by a Surf/Hot Rod instrumental (Lightnin’) or by a surprising melodic song with pop accents (Don’t Turn Your Back On Love). Most songs are written by Brian Young, the singer-guitarist or Liam Killen, the guitarist. Three well-chosen covers complete the set: Dave Diddle Day’s Blue Moon Baby (sung by Bill Johnston, the bassist), Willie Cobb’s You Don’t Love Me and ex-Whirlwind Nigel Dixon’s Someone’s on the Loose.
Get this album as soon as possible, and a good tip, crank up the sound!
Available here
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Fred “Virgil” Turgis