Danko Jones - B-Sides Compilation Review
Canadian Rock Trio Issues an Album's Worth of Obscure Songs
Jul 12, 2009
It’s a foregone conclusion that every musical artist will cough up an album’s worth of obscure or unreleased material at some point during their career. More often than not these packages surface to honour contractual obligations (artist or record label wants out of their original deal), or when an artist is on his / her / their last legs and everyone involved wants to make a few bucks with a final kick at the cat.
Toronto-based rocker Danko Jones and the band that wears his name are far from on their way out, yet they’ve gone the archive compilation route with B-Sides, taking obscure songs from their catalogue that saw the light of day only as non - album single tracks (thus the album name).
Bridging the Gap Between Motörhead and Jimi Hendrix
The tunes featured carry on the Danko Jones tradition of tongue - in - cheek punk - flavoured rock rather than showcasing experiments gone wrong, as these types of packages often do. Far from being rocket science, the songs expertly bridge the gap between Motörhead and Jimi Hendrix in trademark Danko Jones fashion, with a commercial ‘Are You Gonna Go My Way’ Kravitz - meets - KISS vibe tying things together.
The 27 track romp takes the fans through the also-ran files from the band’s four official studio albums - Born a Lion (2002), We Sweat Blood (2003), Sleep is the Enemy (2005), Never Too Loud (2008) - offering up a taste of some musical ideas that were little more than filler – ‘F****d Up’, ‘Ice Cold Angel’, ‘Hit Song’ – and others that could have been given an official high profile album release.
Never Too Loud
Case in point with kick-off track ‘The Rules’, ‘I Like To Ball’, ‘My Problems (Are Your Problems Now)’, ‘Choose Me’ and ‘Sugar High’ (the official single release for this album), all five of which would fit nicely in amongst songs on Sleep is the Enemy or Never Too Loud rather than being shelved.
B-Sides also features worthy cover versions of the Elvis Costello’s hit ‘Pump It Up’ and The Ramones' classic ‘The Return of Jackie and Judy’, as well as a trio of tunes that sound as if they were pulled from a garage demo tape (‘Make a Move’, ‘Drop Your Man’, 'Thinking of You’) thanks to the raw and dirty barely produced sound.
It’s worth noting that ‘Sugar High’, ‘My Problems (Are Your Problems Now)’ and ‘R.I.P. R.F.T.C’ will appear as bonus tracks on the upcoming U.S. release of Never Too Loud on September 8th, 2009.
Overall, a must - have for any die - hard Danko Jones fan… assuming he or she doesn’t already own the singles used to assemble B-Sides.
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