The use of 12-bar blues structures in rock and roll is often mocked as being an oversimplified device, a go-to progression for those still learning their craft. But simple is often the best path to take – simple means direct, familiar, straightforward, and effective. So effective, in fact, that it has been the engine room of much of the output of much of popular music’s guitar-based scenes, ranging from blues to rock and roll (and so then hard rock and metal) and also everything from R&B to pub rock and punk.
And it is swirling around all of these genres that we find The SKB’s with their latest single, “The Whale Edge,” a real groover that blends infectious R&B with energetic rock and roll and echoes the sound of, not only those classic good-time bands, such as Status Quo (and it is pretty telling that Quo sticks man Leon Cave provides the driving beats here) but the more underground pub rock scene as it was just about to spill over into the formative punk sound, as typified by say, Eddie and the Hot Rods.
Barrelhouse pianos are thumped, guitars thrash, and drums pound, all in the most constructive and conducive of ways, and the song looks you in the eye and dares you not to dance. It’s a song of celebration, the words themselves advocating nothing less than having a good time and forgetting the working week for a few days. And why not? We all need some escapism in our lives. Well, now that headlong charge into the weekend has its own brilliant soundtrack. Marvellous!
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