The Respectables release The Power of Rock ‘N’ Roll (LP)

OFFICIAL VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCcty_OEC0k

The Respectables really weren’t doing themselves any favors in their last record Sibley Gardens, but in The Power of Rock ‘N’ Roll, their latest full-length album, they wisely play to the handful of strengths that have gotten them this far in the industry with moderately positive results. While there’s a bit of excess where I was least expecting to find it here – the acoustic wailer “Limousine,” the haggard hybrid “Mardi Gras” and Steppenwolf-style “Give Some” – there are also moments of genuine originality, such as in the pop-rocking “That Girl” and jittery “The Shotgun Seat.” The Power of Rock ‘N’ Roll doesn’t live up to its name by any stretch of imagination, but it’s got enough zeal to qualify it as an accessible offering from a band that seems to be headed (mostly) in the right direction.

Though slightly overproduced, “Oasis,” “As Good as Love Gets” and the countrified “18 Wheeler” (which sports a really sweet swing in its rhythm) are a lot more streamlined and concise than anything we’ve heard from The Respectables before. “Wheel in My Hand” drags on longer than it needs to because of its cringe-worthy abuse of a blues riff, but disappointing tracks like this one are balanced out by more acerbic material like “Highway 20.” The title track has got the bones of a classic rock song, and even though I would have made the drums a little less prominent in the master mix, the hook that serves as the song’s bread and butter gives it a texture that I really wish I could have heard more of across the tracklist.

It’s not an album that would recommend to anyone other than diehard supporters of the band, but The Power of Rock ‘N’ Roll is nevertheless a big upgrade for The Respectables’ nonsensical Sibley Gardens, which contained only shades of the focused style of attack that this record’s most sterling songs employ liberally. The gap in time between the two LPs gave the group some time to hone their craft a little more and get into a more relevant mode as songwriters, and possibly in this second phase of their career, they’ll at last find the perfect counterbalance between alternative rock and traditional pop that has evaded them so torturously for the last thirteen years.

PURCHASE LINK: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Rock-N-Roll/dp/B07HHDKQGT

Joshua Beach