The Cuts - From Here on Out - 2006

These days, the world is full of misguided youngsters who love the 1970s for all the wrong reasons (regrettable clothing, bad television shows, cut-rate animated cartoons), but the Cuts are one band of twenty-somethings who clearly understand what was right about that benighted decade -- rock & roll. Listening to the Cuts' third album, From Here on Out, one hears flashes of the power pop genius of Big Star and the Scruffs, the glam rock swagger of Slade and Sweet, the hard rock punch of Cheap Trick and Mott the Hoople, a handful of forgotten soft rock visionaries produced by Curt Boettcher, and the proto-punk speed jive of early Blondie and the Mumps all bubbling in their gumbo of guitar, drums, and keyboards. This might suggest that the Cuts are more than a bit derivative, but From Here on Out doesn't sound that way -- it sounds like the work of five guys with great taste and strong record collections who've fashioned their obsessions into a sound that's their own, and best of all they have the energy and the chops to match their role models. Ben Brown and Andy Jordan's guitars ring out like raunchy church bells, Garrett Goddard and Carlos Palacios are a powerful and imaginative rhythm section, Dan Aa's keys add the right dash of color to the proceedings, and Jordan and Aa's vocals peal like scrappy schoolboys ready to shout the power of rock & roll to the world. And whether these guys are rocking hard on "Out Here in Space" and "Stop Asking" or letting their softer side show on "Next to Nothing" and "One Last Hurrah," they sound inspired, tuneful, and passionate on every tune. From Here on Out is a great album from a handful of music fans who have learned their lessons exceptionally well; if everyone understood the 1970s as well as these guys, the leisure suit might have been wiped from the collective consciousness by now. -AMG



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