For those of you who don’t know The Diamond Dogs were founded in the late 90’s by vocalist Sulo Karlsson and guitarist Anders Lindström who under the nom de plume of Bobba Fett plays keyboards with The Hellacopters, which through reverse engineering, is how I discovered them. Musically the band is neck deep into the likes of The Faces, The Stones and The Pretty Things with a soulful garage edge and have over these Covid months been re-issuing their back catalogue. The latest is “Atlantic Juice” that collates the songs from the 2003 Jeff Dahl “Atlantic Crossover” split album and a selection from “That’s The Juice I’m On” that I think in turn was a compilation album itself.  

 

Kicking the album off is “From Now On” that tells us We’ll Be Strong and if anything is going to raise your spirits this is the perfect way to get things going in the right direction. “Scunthorpe Avenue” I’m sure wants to be “Gimme Shelter” as played by Dr Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, with “Drink To Ya” the best song the Robinson Brothers never wrote and “You Captured My Smile” is the Diamond Dogs very own “She Talks To Angels”.  “Get The Monkey Off” features some great electric Piano straight from the School of Billy Preston courtesy of The Duke of Honk, who along with Sulo in 2020 is the only original member  

 

Even though the songs were recorded at different sessions “Atlantic Juice” comes across as a well rounded flowing record that could’ve been recorded in the 1970’s down in some Chateau in the South of France. The thing that stood out for me, especially on “Hurt You Twice As Much”, is how much these songs need to be played and heard live. In the meantime I guess we’ll just have to do with the very much appreciated vinyl and CD 

Buy ‘Atlantic Juice’ Here

Facebook

 Author: Armitage Smith