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The Sly Persuaders - The Sly Persuaders

  • Written by  Marky Edison

The debut album from The Sly Persuaders has been compared to The Cramps, The Gun Club, The Birthday Party, garage rock, spaghetti western rockabilly and much more. All of which is justified by the content. They also mix in post-britpop swagger of Kasabian and Hard-Fi. Everything from the artwork to the song titles screams leather jackets, skinny jeans and pointy shoes.

The Sly Persuaders have wisely limited their debut release to nine songs but they have packed it with unforgettable hooks. The high energy music distils sixty-odd years of rock ‘n’ roll into 30 mins of 21st-century rock. There is space in the music too, the band plays with a maturity that belies their tender years.

‘Love’ opens like a psycho version of ‘California Uber Alles’. On ‘Steve Mc Queen’, Christopher Blake meets a girl in New Orleans and takes her down the boulevard. Now, you can’t sing that shit if you’re from South London. There are enough world-renowned landmarks in the city to fill a dozen albums, so affecting an American outlook is redundant. Nonetheless, the song has an irresistible chorus and like ‘Hey Faustus!’, which follows it, it is an immediately familiar and infectious tune ‘Beyond The Rope’ is a haunting dirge dressed in gothic attire and too much eyeliner.

From the opening salvo of ‘Wild For The Night’ to the atmospheric groove of ‘Gun To The Head’ at the end, there isn’t a wasted or extraneous note on The Sly Persuaders. Everything about it is perfectly composed. The backing vocals lift the tunes, the organ adds ambiance but is unobtrusive and the rhythm section drives it all along with menace and an assured demeanor. This isn’t homage or pastiche, The Sly Persuaders make it all sound fresh and put their own spin on the accouterments of psycho garage.

The Sly Persuaders is available via Amazon.

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