Artist: Radio Moscow
Label: Alive Natural Sound Records
Release: 2007
Rating: 3.5/5
Radio Moscow is a provocative project from two young guys out of the USA (the state of Iowa). Provocative because these days young guys tackle just about anything in music before they’d touch the blues. It’s as if, instead of climbing onto a tractor, you grabbed a plow. Radio Moscow are, after all, raised on the blues rulebook. The driving force behind every idea that builds Radio Moscow is the barely 21-year-old Parker Griggs. He played all the guitars, drums and percussion, and on top of that sang every verse on the album, while Luke McDuff focused solely on playing bass.
“Radio Moscow” is an exceptionally fine debut, graced above all by a real touch of spontaneity. It makes that clear the moment the album opens with Frustrating Sound, marked by some cheeky riding on the wah-wah pedal. The album opens totally unbridled, direct and without a shred of pretense. You get that feeling that takes hold of you instantly, that feeling of free-spiritedness that’s almost forgotten today and only comes back to life when you spin the worn-out, faded records of the likes of MC5 or even Grand Funk Railroad.
Dan Auerbach, the frontman of The Black Keys, managed to keep all the elements of bluesy swagger and unrestrained rock energy in the production, which often reflects the defiance of punk. The album breathes with full lungs, lively and charged with real energy.
The guitar echoes Hendrixisms in many ways. The band got a garage-raw, filthy sound down on tape that digs under the listener’s skin without compromise. The power blues gets a shade more intense in Luckydutch, pushing the erotic vibe harder than the opener Frustrating Sound, while in Lickskillet and Timebomb the guys even come close to Peter Green from the golden days of Fleetwood Mac. The style itself, the energy of the album’s dynamic intensity, the happy fanning of hard power riffs with blues touches, underpinned by a galloping, compact and unpredictable rhythm line, conjures up an image of Cream throughout the album, which the closing Fuse rounds off clearly. It’s worth pointing out that Parker Griggs is a musician with an exceptional feel and touch. He proves it in the solos, with which he masterfully spices up the basic riff structure of the songs, bringing in an extremely balanced mix of melody and improvisational abandon, which makes the picture of the whole album a notch more appealing. What goes for the guitar goes for the bass too, which with a firm, thick and melodically ripping approach keeps filling out the sonic picture superbly, balances it in a grounded way and, with a touch of spontaneous exploration, builds up its dynamics even further.
“Radio Moscow” is a debut you don’t hear just every day. It’s genuine, witty, and even though it draws from the elements of the Mississippi Delta, it’s convincing with intense energy and working chemistry. And one thing is rock solid. The album was recorded very quickly, and the guys didn’t need to invent a “fourth dimension” for that. Radio Moscow stormed the studio with nothing but spontaneity, hungry to get a hefty album out of their system. Thank God they’re not some highly technically trained and schooled musicians, because that’s the only way they managed to pour out every last feeling so clearly, vividly and directly, because “Radio Mocow” is an album that’s unbelievably real. When the outer image becomes a mirror of the inside. It doesn’t get more authentic than “Radio Moscow”.
Lineup
Parker Griggs – vocals, guitar, percussion, drums
Luke McDuff – bass guitar
Production
Dan Auerbach
Track list
1. Introduction
2. Fustrating Sound
3. Luckydutch
4. Lickskillet
5. Mistreating Queen
6. Whatever Happened
7. Timebomb
8. Deep Blue Sea
9. Ordovician Fauna
10. Fuse
Album length: 37.15
