Sugar Daddie "American Rickshaw" CD
[Thorp]
Here's some gritty rock 'n' roll that reminds me a lot of Clutch with a little more of a straightforward rock aesthetic. It's the gruff vocals that totally sound like Clutch, albeit slightly deeper and more discernible here, while the music tends to be less dark, with lots of spacious riffing and driving force from the rhythm section. "Say Your Prayers" has a little more attitude and gets more energetic with its riffing, which is nice, but honestly, while not bad, most of the songwriting here is pretty uneventful for me. I don't know, nothing really jumps out as memorable in most cases, you know? Many of the songs sound very similar to one another, and while I enjoy the vocal performance quite a bit, I just don't find the music to be too strong a backing. The fuzzed out leads don't add much fire, the note-based riffing is a little too thin and midpaced, the chord progressions often come off as a little too slow and thinned out, and some of the changeups in dynamics with brief clean passages or slightly smoother vocal deliveries (see "Wishing Well") just don't do anything for me because the writing itself just strikes me as bland. The slightly darker passages don't really hit enough of a vibe to move me, and the rocked out stuff just isn't that energetic. Somewhat ironically, considering the similarities in sound, the disc was produced by Jean Paul Gaster of Clutch, though I'm not totally sure the sound is totally in check. They're damn sure on the right track, I really like the vocals and find their prominence to be a plus, for example. And the bass presence is definitely solid. But the guitar tone feels a little lacking, and some of the percussion falls flat in the distance, so there are some gaps in the mix that need some tweaking to fill out. I'm not that wild on the cover, but the layout does look good, with crisp photography, bold text, clean arrangements, and the high contrast illustration/collage on the inner spread looks awesome. The lyrics are sort of strange and seem to be a mix of content, with some interesting bits and pieces in the cryptically delivered lines: "Aces high dynamite close your eyes now legions of millions fly oh my lord feast and gorge dine with the wine now that the brown recluse spider went stepping on anthills looking for lovers but finding eternity you're like a lily flower dying as the grapes upon the vines in your final hour you still cannot find the correct time." I don't know, I thought this was gonna be better than it is. It's basically slightly off kilter rock 'n' roll with a few winding little twisted passages... it's just too slow and monotonous. I can't get into it, sorry. (5/10)
Running time - 27:38, Tracks: 11
[Notable tracks: Say Your Prayers, Blind Leading the Blind]
Thorp Records - http://www.thorprecords.com

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