Album Review

The Orwells - Disgraceland

Item: The Orwells - Disgraceland
Rating: 4

The Orwells have got this thing down.

Reviewer: Matthew Davies Lombardi

Released: 2nd June 2014

Label: Canvasback / Atlantic

If you want to imagine the future of The Orwells, imagine a boot stamping on a bar room floor – forever. These Chicago guys are doing something different, but reassuringly familiar.

Their mission is to take rock and roll back to the masses. The tools they’re employing towards these ends are formidable ones, with a potent Strokes / Wavves / Stooges mix. Live, they manage to cover ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’, without making it sound like one of those shameless washed out classics destined for an advert.

‘Southern Comfort’, an infectious, cocky garage rock track with some irresistible “aah-aah-ahh”-ing, easy to grasp lyrics and a drumline that pretty much runs on from White Denim’s ‘Let’s Talk About It’ opens ‘Disgraceland’. “I don’t have a care, yeah, yeah, yeah” demands to be shouted all summer at festivals, and scrawled on bathroom walls - and that’s how second song ‘The Righteous One’ sees itself out. Even as early as third number ‘Dirty Sheets’ it’s pretty damn clear The Orwells have got this thing down entirely. Each subsequent track is an exhibition; a textbook tuneful but admirably punk chorus, sharp jaunty riffs poking out over the crashing drums and thundering bass. It seems almost old school, the craft that The Orwells are putting into the lost art of the humble riff. ‘Let It Burn’ is a potential anthem, with all its detached charm, while ‘Who Needs You’ and ‘Always N’ Forever’ see them push through the spectrum of jangly guitar sounds.

Like Parquet Courts’ less intellectual roommate that gets invited to more parties and has earned a bit more beer money, if the kids are ready to take the rock and roll spirit back into their hearts, there’s no better a proposition out there right now than The Orwells.

Tags: The Orwells, Reviews, Album Reviews