What we have here is Kepi Ghoulies love letter to the love songs of the Ramones. Its as simple as that nothing clever justsimple versions of simple songs a homage to Da Bruddahs. Hey ho lets go! 1-2-3-4.

Kepi has been releasing a love song or two every Valentines for well over a decade and when recording ‘I Want You Around’ Kepi hit on the idea of enlisting as many friends as possible to add Keyboards, Horns, whatever was needed to pour in the love on these iconic tracks. I think its fair to say that The Ramones never really got the universal credit for their songwriting that they deserved and I know that people like Kepi feel the same and every now and then when someone with equal talent shines a light into the darkened corner of rock labelled The Ramones people always trip over the songwriting and rightly so. These Love Letters are reimagined and redefined and done so so well.

‘I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend’ kicks things off in the simple acoustic guitar and vocal lament you could imagine and it brings a tear to my eye. Beautiful. The saxophone on ‘Baby I Love You’ reminds me of Johnny Thunders when he last toured with the oddballs – simple and sublime. Same for ‘Here Today Gone Tomorrow’. ‘Needles And Pins’ has some lush electric guitar for texture making it sound like the Byrds but one of my favourite Ramones songs is ‘Questioningly’ and there is a cover out there by Jesse Malin that was a wonderful take on such a beautiful song and Kepi has taken it somewhere else with the lap steel.

‘Baby I Love You’ from the Phil Spector wall of sound album is taken on a trip with just acoustic guitar and saxophone is the sound of heartbreak and the strained vocals are just what this version needs. It might be hard to mix it up but not picking the mega hits and instead digging deep for tracks like ‘She’s A Sensation’, ‘7-11’ being almost acapella and ‘My Kinda Girl’ so its a great mix of deep cuts and course the more appropriate love songs.

If you love Da Bruddahs and Kepi Ghoulie or just want to hear something softer and downright interesting then this has to be something you need to check out besides if you’re having a candlelight meal for you and your love then this will earn brownie points for sure. Stick with it though because ‘She ‘Belongs To Me’ and ‘Bye Bye Baby’ are probably two of the best songs on offer for interpretation and delivery. Keep em coming Kepi I’m loving your work. Buy It!

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Author: Dom Daley