Metal Shock Finland (World Assault )

For those who need to belong to a musical tribe, Shaggy Dogs are renegades because they do not claim any affiliation. Blues ? Not only. Pub Rock ? Too restrictive! Rock, maybe ? Soul ??? A little bit of this and a little bit of that, a subtle melting pot that they call Blues’n’Roll fiesta.

Can they be considered rebels and outlaws because they refuse all the clichés associated to a defined genre and do not accept conventions ? They have chosen freedom and their music is rich of many influences and colours. Their motto : partying with the crowd.

Nine albums later, endlessly touring in France, Europe, Canada and even Japan, the hounds bite deeper than ever. They are back with a brand new album ‘Pinball Boomers’, produced by the well-known Nick BRINE from Rockfields Studios in Wales. Their priorities have not changed, and they keep repeating that one needs to make the most of every single moment.

Since their inception, the Shaggy Dogs have always connected their blues & roll fiesta to the source of the mother of all music – the origin of the modern world, so to speak – the blues. On this new album, we find the very characteristic “My Baby Left Me In The Fog” attesting to their good faith. More bluesy, they would have drowned in the swamp, eaten by alligators.

With ‘Pinball Boomers’, the shaggy dogs continue their campaign of transgressive emancipation. The Shaggy Dogs’ Blues’n’Roll fiesta has always lifted its rhythm’n’blues colors high, with Dr Feelgood as its standard-bearer, as evidenced by “Your Love Is Dynamite”. However, the Dogs broaden the palette with a Staxian-style instrumental section, in the style of the J. Geils Band (“Who’s Gonna Vote”, “Go & Run”) or Barrence Withfield (“City Guy”, “We Could Have Been To China”). 

And if “Lee’s The Man” is a heartfelt tribute to Lee Brilleaux, the Stones could also lay claim to it, with its chorus of buxom mermaids dutifully toiling away in the parking lot of an idle motel just off Route 66 near Albuquerque. The same configuration is found in “Talk Too Fast”, whose lyrics inspire the album title: ‘Live your life like a pinball machine, trying to score without ever falling down.’ The closing track, “Better Life”, is a pure pub-rock gem, riding on a Bo Diddley-style spiral rhythm, with a nod to Dr Feelgood.

The Shaggy Dogs don’t hesitate to use orchestration to match their ambitions; when horns, piano or Hammond organ are at the forefront, they enrich songs that spin out of control and give rise to ideas that morality frowns upon…

The themes tackled by ‘Pinball Boomers’ take a bitter look at our society, our daily lives, our relationships, our questioning, our doubts. You don’t come to blues and rock by chance; the motivation isn’t just musical. These are the only modes of expression that allow you to honestly get rid of your frustrations and anxieties, and in this regard, the Shaggy Dogs do it admirably well.

The Shaggy Dogs are back with a great ‘Pinball Boomers’ collar, but be warned, no one has ever been able to keep them on a leash.

Enter into their spatiotemporal crack and rediscover the Rock’n’Roll Blues big bang !

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