This new take on the Dogs D’Amour’s eight-song third album is a solo retread by the band’s singer-songwriter Tyla that echoes his earlier re-recording of the Dogs’s In The Dynamite Jet Saloon album, alongside engineer/guitarist Lézard and drummer Simon Hanson.
The most obvious change here is that over time, his booze-soaked voice has deepened so much it approaches Tom Waits. He takes the new versions more slowly, too, with a melancholic piano that wasn’t on the originals.
The bonus is a great Lézard guitar solo on the chilling When The Dream Has Gone, and five extra songs (mostly from the 2000 fan club release Seconds). Whether Tyla has writer’s block or is merely artistically driven to restyle his classic work matters little: this sounds like a reaffirmation of an overlooked talent.
It’s a winning mixture of good times battling misery – witness the rollicking Errol Flynn versus Angel (So You Shall Be) – that’s now better than ever.
