D-Day Lewis – Alive
D-Day Lewis sounds like the kind of group that decides to take part in a Battle of the Bands but shows up and plays as if they’re headlining Wembley. They possess a great combo of street-swagger, self-belief, and delusion. Those are all ingredients for success.
They also sound like the kind of group that would be smashing up their instruments and those of the other participants if they don’t win. There’s something charming about the fact that they present themselves like the Chili Peppers swinging their sock-covered members around violently, but their sound is still very much that of a band playing a small club.
This works to the advantage of D-Day Lewis on Alive. The nasty, over-the-top vocals are, of course, the front and centre of the song. MCing aside, the band manages to cook up a good mix of hard funk-rock heavy on the guitar riffs and on the marching band drum tone.
Some people just can’t be brought down and made to feel depressed. Canadians D-Day Lewis seem to be among those kinds of people.
WALK3R – Riot In Me
What instruments do they typically use in funk music? Well, if you are of the same opinion as James Brown, the style’s greatest frontman, and as it turns out, a great strategist, they only use drums. Every other instrument that, guitar, bass, vocals, or horns, simply masquerade as drums.
Rock n’ roll has not always been one of the least sophisticated musical styles in terms of rhythm. But, as the sound got bigger, as the riffs got louder, and as singer honed their skills, rock’s fascination with groove was principally lost.
This isn’t true, of course, of all musicians handling a distorted guitar as is the case with WALK3R, a music project that sounds like a barbaric little ritual. Riot in me is built almost exclusively around rhythm, making an ideal fit for either wake-up music or a soundtrack to a modern computer game about sports.
