W.S. Walcott Medicine Show

Richard Davies & The Dissidents: High Times & Misdemeanours

Richard Davies has been bouncing around the London rock and roll scene for quite some time now, mostly as a gun slinging sidekick in such UK acts as Tiny Monroe and later on, The Snakes. That pretty much changed roughly four years ago when Davies decided to jump out front and center with his own band, The Dissidents and the release of their critically aclaimed (at least in the UK) debut album, Human Traffic.

This week we get the follow up to Human Traffic with High Times and Misdemeanours, out on Gare du Nord Records. Following a rootsy garage formula of rock and roll, the album ought to tickle quite a bit of fancies. You can hear a myriad of influences throughout the album, be it the very Jesse Malin(ish) opening track, “Keep Your Fires Burning” or the countless homages to the legend of Johnny Thunders which are present throughout the album. There’s the “London Calling” guitar strums of “Soldier Of Fortunes” follwed on the album by “Human On The Inside” which you would swear was lifted right out of the Nude Beach catalogue with its sweet and sassy power pop meets Tom Petty vocals.

The album is filled with sounds that we should all be relatively familiar with. I hear glimpses of Graham Parker, Springsteen, Dylan, Willie NIle, The Rolling Stones, and Ryan Adams to name just a few. The closing tune of the album is a modern take on the 60’s hit from the Grass Roots, “Lets Live For Today” which is done with a late 80’s lower east side punk meets power pop flair that’s accentuated by the rolling, hook laden keyboard playing of Neil Scully that I swear has a direct lineage to Al Kooper’s classic organ riffs from Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited sessions.

All in all, High TImes & Misdemeanours is a thoroughly enjoyable album that manages to mix fresh with familiar by combining an amalgam of heartland rock with plenty of down and dirty rock and roll. Truth be told, there’s nothing really new here, but hot damn Richard Davies and The Dissidents have put together a fun rock and roll album which,, like I said, rings true to the forebearers of rock without feeling the least bit stale or formulaic.