Album Review: The Struts - "Strange Days"

 

Without wanting to sound too over-dramatic, this really is put up or shut up time for everyone's favourite Darkness soundalikes from LA via Derby. Now on their third album, their debut, 2014's Everybody Wants was the sound of a band where there was plenty of promise who could kick loose to good effect live but seemed a little bit hemmed in by an over-reliance on studio trickery. The route forward should have been obvious but for reasons best known to themselves (or perhaps their record label), they instead slammed firmly into reverse gear for 2018's Young And Dangerous, an album so over-produced that it saw the band's sound horribly blunted and, a couple of moments where the tunes packed the muscle to punch through the over-zealous studio sheen aside, sunk in a morass of gloopy synths and ham-fisted superfluous orchestral effects. So, have they turned it around at this belated juncture or is this a case of the group drifting beyond the point of no return?

The prospect of this album starting off with a ballad featuring Robbie Williams on backing vocals is the sort of thing that I was anticipating with all the enthusiasm of having to drink a soup tureen of stale piss but...somehow it actually just about works. Gentle and understated, it shows a much needed softer side to the Struts' output and turns what could have been well south of disastrous into something actually quite affecting. All Dressed Up (With Nowhere To Go) kicks the album into gear properly and, oh joy, at last the buggers have realised that you don't need to add in a load of fatuous over-production as it kicks in with a swaggering Stonesy guitar building to a big singalong chorus. Even the horns on the chorus work in the context of the song. Unfortunately just as the band seem to be building up speed, a rather superfluous cover of Kiss' Do You Love Me (I mean, good song and all that but wouldn't it have been better to put this as a bonus track or B-side?) puts the brakes on suddenly.

I Hate How Much I Want You features none other than Joe Elliott and Phil Collen on backing vocals and, ignoring a truly cringy "joke" spoken intro between Joe and Luke Spiller, builds into a big old '70s glam skyscraper of a song in the best Sweet/Slade style. Again, a much needed reaffirmation of the Struts' rock credentials after the disappointing previous effort. The fact that this is followed by Wild Child which features Rage Against The Machine's Tom Morello on guitar could have been a bit of an awkward combination but this is the point where the Struts really do succeed in burying the disappointment of last time out with the thudding bass and stomping riff seeing them sounding arguably their heaviest yet.

Cool takes the riff from Free's All Right Now and spins it off in a 21st century glam direction (again, there's a definite hint of Def Lep here) to good effect and the shamelessly cheesy Burn It Down goes into full blown G'n'R piano ballad territory but carries it off with a cheeky Darkness style chutzpah that keeps it afloat. You'll notice that this is the first time in this review we've mentioned the band that the Struts seem to have been cursed with being compared to since day one and that's surely a good sign that they're finally starting to step out of the shadow of Justin and co a bit.

Another Hit Of Showbusiness features the Strokes' Albert Hammond Jr on guitar for a freewheeling slice of Tom Petty style country rock (although somehow you couldn't exactly see Spiller fronting a band at the Opry - no loss though). Which just leaves the addictive low-slung boogie of Can't Sleep and the sinister almost cocktail-jazz style Am I Talking To The Champagne (Or Talking To You)? to guide things home in typically suave style.

Strange Days is definitely a key moment in the Struts' development - with this one they finally seem to have stepped out of the shadow of sounding like a poor man's Darkness or a group of hopelessly trend-chasing Queen wannabes to actually finding their own sound which, while it's easily traceable to those '70s glam rock/classic rock origins that they've never been shy to own up to, sees them putting their own stamp on things with aplomb. Compare that to all those vacant-eyed "New Wave Of Classic Rock" drones like Massive Wagons who just seem content to rehash the sounds of 1975 with no sense of progress and at least they're trying to drag this formula forward.

In fact, y'know what? If you want to find out the key to what makes this the best Struts album to date, go back to that cringy intro between Luke and Joe Elliott that I mentioned earlier. In it, Luke mentions that the group put this album together in just ten days during lockdown. And that's the key to what's finally brought this fire breathing rock dragon out of its shell - the label haven't had the chance to get their filthy mitts on these efforts and drown them in over-production crapola the way they did with Young And Dangerous. And, whaddayaknow, it's given them not only their best album to date but their best selling one too. Word of advice lads, next time the label and A&R men try to force stuff on you, just take a copy of Strange Days along with you, point to it and say "No guys. THIS is how we do things from now on!"  

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑 (8/10)