The Top 20 Albums of 2011 - #16 - Rhythm Hawks: Rhythm Hawks

The Top 20 Albums of 2011

#16 Rhythm Hawks: Rhythm Hawks

Words by Dirk Calloway

Preface: each day for another 15 days, we're reviewing the 20 Best Albums of 2011. You should check out others in the series here if you wanna find out what you've been missing.

Full disclosure, I'm friends with many of the members of Rhythm Hawks. They're actually on a hiatus at the moment, after a fairly hectic schedule of gigging. As such, I'll try to keep this review as clinical as I can. Heck, thanks to their Bandcamp page, which enables embedding and sharing, I can let their music do the work for me:

What's the first thing you notice as you listen to that song? Is it the fading of a siren? Or is it that you're unsure what era the music comes from? For me, the thing I love about it is that the song seems to blossom right up to 1:27. Its sense of space and colour continues to open right up to that point. From there, the song hits a pause button and continues another blooming period. The band wisely resist hitting that button too often though, and the next time they do your patience is rewarded with a wall of sound. And what a groovy (outdated adjective used deliberately) sound they can make:

How do you like that for a jam? Sure it's nothing revolutionary, but its inclusion on Rhythm Hawks harkens back to a time where surf bands let loose with instrumentals that were sometimes more interesting than the tracks around them. Specifically, I'm thinking of a song like The Beach Boys' cover of Moon Dawg. This type of cut says to the listener, "we're here to dance and strut, but we'll add a sharp edge to that fun, so please pass the whiskey." But then, if you're watching them live, you figure that out pretty quickly. Here's them at Mighty Mighty, in Wellington, having a grand old time with their song Coochie Coo:

I wouldn't say their live shows were legendary or incendiary just yet, but the band got tighter and tighter throughout 2011, to the point where their set sounded just as good as the album we're reviewing today. If nothing else, their album and gigs were consistently able to boost my mood last year. No matter what time of day I put one of their songs on, I'd be able to rock out with a big goofy grin on my face. The album's final song Outside Woman Blues is like the sum of their parts: a howling lead guitar that plays throughout, a thumping rhythm section in lock-step (with fantastic bass drops to bring the band into line), and the whole band hollering at the top of their lungs between bottles of Castlepoint. Check it out below:

Ready for another review tomorrow? Cool. It's less rock and more hippity hop than today's album. And, as always, click here if you want to read any of the other posts in this series.