Danko Jones have peddled a mixed bag of styles for more than a decade now – one that defies the predictability one may deduce from the familiar 90s-00s US pop-punk vocal. Classic hard rock, 80s hardcore, poppy punk, metal... All of those appear on this, their sixth studio release, but with a new poise and assurance.
They were screwing girls in the backs of Cadillacs and lamenting lady troubles in 2010’s Below The Belt, and the predominant tone of Rock And Roll... suggests they have no intention of stopping. ‘Legs! Legs! Long legs!’ Danko sings on Legs. Man, they love legs… The feminist in this writer would righteously condemn them were it not so blatantly ‘stoopid’.
Oh, and the classic bluesy-rock licks peppered across the record are pretty delicious. Perhaps more than ever before, their grounding love of the likes of Kiss and AC/DC is resoundingly clear. Be it the spit’n’grind drive of Conceited, or the sun-sex’n’sleaze swagger of Don’t Do This, retro roots apply, albeit modulated with alt.punk rock zing.
Yes, lyrically it’s basically all girls and getting lucky (or unlucky), but there’s something genuinely original and ballsy about Rock And Roll… that essentially overrides this
