Gary Dranow - Destiny Road (self-released)

Remember when rock music still had its teeth? When it swayed and swaggered with attitude and artistry? Remember when it still remembered where it came from, recalled its formative years swaddled in the sonic blankets of blues. Remember when it understood that it wasn’t how many notes it played but which ones, and a time when volume and velocity were less important than melody and groove? Do you? Do you remember? Well, Gary Dranow does, and “Destiny Road” is the proof.

“Destiny Road” could be seen as a bridge to a more substance over style past, a return to simpler times. Not that the music is simple, but it is unfussy and effective without resorting to verbosity and bombast. It is clean-limbed blues-rock, delivering only what it needs to make its point, serving the song, not the players’ ego. Something we have forgotten in more recent times.

But I don’t want it to seem like I’m suggesting that Gary Dranow doesn’t have the chops. This is all chops; there are more chops here than a Texas meat packing factory, more hooks than a Peter Pan convention. He effortlessly blends muscle with melody and grooves with grit, but he leaves enough room for the light to get in, the song occasionally dropping back to acoustic interludes and understated lulls before using that dynamic to come back in with a helluva kick.

“Destiny Road” is the sound of rock and roll past, remade for the current audience and, hopefully, inspiring a future of uncluttered and unfussy, foot-on-the-monitor, heads-down, no-nonsense, mindless music! Who’s with me?

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