Sheepdogs: Learn & Burn

The thing I like about my generation, and its attitude toward music, is that the music of decades past is no longer "our parents' music," the stuff they make us listen to when we're young until we come into our own and embrace the current. Thanks to the internet and Classic Rock radio, we're free to explore at our own pace and keep going. That's why so many of my classmates in high school had Zeppelin fixations, and why the winners of Rolling Stone's first-ever "Choose the Cover" contest wasn't a quirky indie rock band making a stab for the groundbreaking (and there were a few good ones in the lot,) but the Sheepdogs, on the strength of "I Don't Know," which stands as a pinnacle, but hardly the lone peak, of this set. I've spent a lot of time on this blog trying to figure out why we (I) love throwback music so much. It can't simply be because music from the 60's was empirically "better." What I've figured is that at the least, it represents a choice: a conscious effort not to "go with the flow," to pick out the best of the past and breathe life into it. What the discourse of classic rock does is sift through the everything of the past, pick out what still resonates, and allows us to pick it up and go again. To hone and refine the past for the present.

I don't think its enough, though, to merely be a good Zeppelin/Creedence/Skynyrd/Allmans/Guess Who cover group. Learn & Burn is the southern rock counterpoint to Raphael Saadiq's triumphant R&B pastiche Stone Rollin', in that it mixes and matches in ways that wouldn't have been done in the day. You can see the lines of reference, but only as shadows in the present. So we get rollicking guitars, easygoing lap steels, fiery solos, foggy organs, even a splash of horns, on an album that covers an impressive range of moods and moments, all while being consistently skillful, inventive, and awesome-sounding.

Exhibit A for their extreme listenability is, of course, "I Don't Know," the song that won them the hearts of the contest voters. That easy-breezy see-saw riff just wraps you up and holds you tight like so many riffs of old. It lays out their sonic blueprint, easygoing, intuitive rock laid out over a solid, propulsive rhythm. They do a great job playing in this sandbox. The first two tracks and "I Don't Get By" are just awesome. "Southern Dreaming" is pure relaxation, a sunny day on the porch. In a lot of tracks, they really cut loose, like "Soldier Boy" and "Catfish 2 Boogaloo," where they really reach critical mass on sheer rockitude. Other times, they clamp down their focus, like the grinding funk of "Right On."

Impressively, they don't just get by on charm and talent, any more than they're good because they sound "just like" Classic Rock Band-X. This is a band with a good sense of composition and direction. They dabble a bit in acoustic-picking segments ("You Discover") and the soulful "Rollo Tomasi," which rolls in on militaristic drums, a blast of horns and tense pianos, but settles into a dreamy slow jam ("Givin' my love away to you / Is hard for me to do...") There's also the title track, which blends the southern rock stylings with a sixties-type call-and-answer lyric, and a lounge act delivery. At that point, they're really showing off.

Consider the titanic, staggering opener, "The One You Belong To," with sweeping riffs and wistful lyrics, and how it cuts, absolutely fucking seamlessly into the more nimble, sheepish "Please Don't Lead Me On," with its tapping ivory piano. Someone in the band must really like the Abbey Road medley, because the album both begins and ends with one. The last four tracks brings us from the cool, breezy "Suddenly," up through the ramped-up rhythm-rock of "Baby, I Won't Do You No Harm," the soaring "We'll Get There" and the epic conclusion, "I Should Know" (which brings the album more or less full circle, given the earlier track.) They lay out the parameters, and then explore them to their utmost.

They do a good job coming up with lyrical matter that suits their style: they don't know, and they need help, but it's all very casual and shrugging in its way. Like they have confidence they'll find their way somehow. Ewan Currie's vocals are as easygoing as the guitar-playing, as rhythmic as the drums. The harmonies lend the whole affair the feeling of unity and togetherness that rock often brings at its best. Some of the best albums in the classic rock canon don't seem like they had to be created, but simply happened, and this set definitely has that quality.

I don't look at is as having a gimmick or a niche appeal. I look at it as being very good at what you do, as bringing something unique to the table: it isn't a tribute to old music, something you need to be a music lover to appreciate, but a resurrection of that type (as if it needed it) by virtue of quality. I don't think any band playing the throwback card would have won a contest, but a band that does anything this well deserves attention, for sure.

Buy this album now! iTunes // Amazon.com // Amazon.ca