Album Review: The Datsuns - “Eye To Eye”

 

Back after an extended break, this is the first Datsuns album since 2014's Deep Sleep. Hand on heart, my main memory of the New Zealand garage rockers was seeing them live back in their five minutes of fame when they broke through in the post-Strokes wave of garage bands and thinking they were amazing only to buy their debut album and be really disappointed by it as the flat production comprehensively squeezed out the sparkle the band had in the live arena. I've encountered a couple of their albums since then (2004's Outta Sight/Outta Mind and the aforementioned Deep Sleep) and none of them have really captured my imagination so can this one buck the trend?

Well it gets off to a good start with the revved up Dehumaniser recalling Brain Capers era Mott the Hoople which is no bad thing but unfortunately it quickly sinks back into a fairly familiar '70s rock aping rut with the "Thin Lizzy on Mogadon" Warped Signals and the Dylanesque White Noise Machine being okay but not really standout. The lurching T-Rex style riff of Sweet Talk is at least a step back in the right direction and the urgent Brain To Brain is even better, sounding like Iggy fronting Virginia Plain era Roxy Music. Bite My Tongue ups the urgency further to almost Motorhead levels while the Bolanisms of Moongazer and Raygun definitely suggests that the Datsuns may have shifted their focus slightly from '70s classic rock to glam rock which is no bad thing.

Suspicion has a sinister air of urgency about it with its strutting riff before the garage rock headbanger Other People's Eyes and the spooked out In Record Time (which definitely owes a nod to Led Zep but not in an insultingly obvious way a la Greta van Fleet) bring this one to a close in good style.

After a sluggish start, Eye To Eye is definitely an album that gets better as it goes on with the Datsuns' new found love of '70s glam rock giving their sound a badly needed shot in the arm. For a band who've always been dogged by the Achilles heel of inconsistency, this hits the target on a surprisingly frequent basis and might just be their strongest effort yet. Well worth your investigation.

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NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑 (8/10)

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