Music Reviews

“deluxtone_rockets”

The Deluxtone Rockets

The Deluxtone Rockets

Tooth And Nail

Take the rockabilly-swing hybrid of the Brian Setzer Orchestra, remove the big-band, the talent of both Brian Setzer’s vocal and guitar range, and throw in lots of typically uninspired lyrics about dancing. What you’ll have left is a musical shell with a fancy exterior, but nothing substantial inside. Oh, you’ll also have the Deluxtone Rockets.

Every member of this sextet probably has many colorful dragon tattoos on their forearm, and their ability to play while accenting the second and fourth beats has been nailed down to a science. However, the Rockets show of themselves little more than a slightly good rockabilly band attempting to grab out the last remaining dollars waited to be scooped up by the neo-swing phenomenon. For amidst the distorted rockabilly-like guitar licks is a 3-person horn section and a sporadic group-chant more unemotional than Ben Stein in Ferris Beuler’s Day Off .

“Baby let’s go to the rock and roll show / Baby let’s go it’s a be bop a go-go” is how “Be Bop A Go Go” starts off. As if that isn’t enough of an indication that this band has little to nothing to say for itself, there’s always the highly-insightful and well crafted “Oh joy-ride / We’re goin’ for a ride / We’re riding in a big white car now” of the less-than-rocking “God’s Cadillac.” If bands that try to be nothing more than a speck in the identical masses of a genre were something to be held sacred, the Deluxtone Rockets would be deemed saints. However, in a world that appreciates originality, they’re nothing more than dead weight.

Tooth & Nail Records, P.O. Box 12698, Seattle, WA 98111


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