The Dead Daisies are kicking it old school with their new album Live & Louder, a reverent nod (and joyous headbang) in the direction of some of the classic gems in the rock n’ roll treasury like Guns N’ Roses’ Live Era, Cheap Trick’s Live at Budokan, Thin Lizzy’s Live and Dangerous or Hendrix’s Live at Woodstock.
The concept of the “live album” itself has become something of an anachronism in modern times, a forgotten art form lost in the digital age, when you can just whack on a YouTube concert if you want a friendly reminder of what a band sounds like IRL. But leave it to a rock n’ roll supergroup to remind us why the humble live album offers something totally different to what can be readily dug up on the internet.
The Dead Daisies set their guitars to stun on Live & Louder, which bottles the high-octane, sweat-drenched energy of their live sound across 16 explosive tracks.
Recorded on tour in 2016 at shows in France, Austria, England, and Germany, the LP sounds like an arena has been squeezed into your listening device, which is partly thanks to the talents of Anthony Fox (Aerosmith, Bad Company, Metallica, Santana) and Howie Weinberg who mixed and mastered this monster.
From the opening bars of disc kickstarter ‘Long Way To Go’ off the band’s 2016 LP Make Some Noise, the LP strikes that golden balance between totally raw and totally massive, with the band oozing larger-than-life showmanship and ’80s rockstar swagger throughout every track, from frontman John Corabi’s cheeky crowd amp-ups to guitarists Doug Aldrich and David Lowy’s charismatic lick-wars.
Speaking of which, the inclusion of the “band intros” — a staple of every respectable rock band’s live set — is another fun highlight of the disc, giving each one of the Daisies’ titanic lineup of rock n’ roll power-players a chance to show off their mind-boggling talents.
It’s awesome to hear Corabi wrapping his cement mixer pipes around Jon Stevens-era track ‘Lock N’ Load’, and there’s also plenty of badass covers — The Beatles’ ‘Helter Skelter’, Grand Funk’s ‘American Band’, Alex Harvey’s ‘Midnight Moses’, The Who’s ‘Join Together’ and Credence’s ‘Fortunate Son’ — as bonus surprises for fans who want to pack a few extra Daisies tunes into their music libraries.
Live & Louder was intended as a gift to Dead Daisies’ diehards. The band aren’t trying to change the world with this LP, they just want to rock their fans’. And that is something they’ve never once failed at doing.
The Dead Daisies’ Live & Louder is out now.
