‘Dead End City’ was originally released back in 2001 by Stardumb Records. While you can still pick up vinyl repressings in Europe, this long out of print album from Italian stallions The Peawees is finally available on CD for the US market on Rum Bar Records.

The Peawees have been playing low slung rock ‘n’ roll for over two decades now and last year’s ‘Moving Target’, their 5th long player, proves they have aged disgracefully and are in fact, a band at the height of their powers, melding vintage Elvis Costello melodies with 50’s rock ‘n’ roll vibes and dirty, punk rock goodness.

 

‘Dead End City’ originally came out at a time when the airwaves were choc a bloc with a different kind of punk. The pop/punk of Sum 41 and Blink 182 were mainstream, yet it was the Scandinavian bands that were ruling the stereos of those in the know, right?  Albums by the likes of Backyard Babies, The Hellacopters and The Hives are the ones that stick in my memory from 2001. There were plenty of other great albums that were very much under the radar, such as this little gem of an album.

Led by singer/guitarist Hervé Peroncini, The Peawees bash out an irresistible combination of garage rock, rhythm & blues and punk rock that is as timeless as the influences they wear on their leather jacket clad sleeves.

Opener ‘Road To Rock ‘n’ Roll’ is a wall of guitars and urgent beats, with a chorus that brings to mind RPM faves The Loyalties, in part due to the vocal similarities to Tom Spencer. In fact, this album pre-dates the Loyalties, coming out a year after The Yo-Yo’s disbanded and a few years before The Loyalties got going.

Lead single ‘Cause You Don’t Know Me’ is a mighty fine anthemic blast of rock ‘n’ roll fun, you will swear down you have heard before. I was that convinced, I was on the net quick sharpish to check! Hervé’s gruff vocals cut through the distortion to deliver an instant chorus that will stick long after the final notes have faded. Brilliant stuff.

With pop-tastic melodies on the likes of ‘No Reaction’ and ‘Ready To Go’, handclaps and cool as you like solos that nod their heads to Chuck Berry (‘In My Heart Tonight’) and to spaghetti westerns (‘I’m Not Right’), the tunes on ‘Dead End City’ cannot fail to ignite the rock ‘n’ roll in your soul one way or another, guaranteeing your return for repeated listens.

 

While a choice, run through of CCR’s ‘Proud Mary’ closed the original album, now an additional 3 tracks including the old doo wop classic ‘Run Around Sue’ and the super-fantastic rocker ‘Don’t Give A Fuck’ only adds to the high energy fun of a band that gloriously melds vintage, guitar-driven garage rock goodness with the pop sensibilities of new wave, to create a masterful album that will sit proudly between The Hellacopters and Social Distortion on your shelf.

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Rum Bar Records

 

Author: Ben Hughes

 

 

 

 

 

Gerald Stansbury

 

What if you took some great garage rock and added some sprinkles of the Hellacopters to the mix? You get a really tasty album by The Peawees from Italy. A band that has been going strong for over two decades now. The band does not spend time trying to push boundaries or take huge musical risks. They focus their time on crafting songs that would be as at home in the 60’s as they are now. This is a fun, addictive album that you can listen to in less than 30 minutes, which gives a good excuse to just play it all over again.

‘Walking Through My Hell’ crashes in all at once with the vocal of Herve’ Peroncini making an immediate impact as he sings with an edge created with years of experience but also a lot of melody. This song is direct and wastes no time in its two and half minutes and sets the stage perfectly for what is coming for the remaining 9 songs. Put this thing on your local jukebox and watch the people start moving to the beat. Tommy Gonzalez (drums) and Fabio Clemente (bass) ring in ‘A Reason Why’ on nice MOD beat with Carlo Landini (guitar) and Peroncini (also guitar) providing crunch to the beat and a fun guitar solo that you could almost be lifted from early Hanoi Rocks in tone and approach. The chorus leaves a hook in the brain. ‘Stranger’ is super catchy and features some awesome rocking piano that takes the song to a whole other level. The band keep the party going with some Hellacopters style adrenaline on the fast tempo ‘Christine.’ The bass and drums on the chorus sound awesome as do the Chuck Berry inspired guitar riffs.

Reaching the end of side one, ‘Justify’ offers an easy going rhythm and blues soulful type ballad that is extremely catchy. It ends the first half of the album in fine style. Current blues rockers Vintage Trouble would really appreciate this one. Peroncini shows another great side to his voice within the context of the album. Flipping the album over MP3 style, the band rips into ‘Leave This Place’ with some punk energy and razor hooks. The groove by Gonzalez and Clemente is awesome. ‘Phil Spector’ offers some classic rock n roll with a sticky like fly paper chorus featuring some terrific ‘yeah, yeah, yeahs.’ If this was the soundtrack of his hell as he describes it, hell is sounding really good.

‘The Matter’ offers some great vocal work to build the sneaky good hook as well as great guitar riffs by Landini and Peroncini. This has become possibly my favorite song on the album with repeated listens. ‘As Long As You Can Sleep’ offers a huge chorus that has kept drawing me back to this one. The Peawees do an awesome job of inserting musical breaks in their songs to provide diversity and really maximize the effects of the beats and riffs. I also really like the cool use of repetition in the vocals at the end of the song. Bringing the album to a close ‘Til My Mojo Works’ introduces some nice harmonica work and is a solid song for my tastes, but it does not reach the level of the others. I might have swapped it with ‘As Long As You Can Sleep’ as I think it would have offered a stronger closer to the album.

The Peawees sound great here and have done things the old school way with ten songs mostly under three minutes in length. The CD age tended to find bands trying to fill all 80 minutes with music while the transition to this digital world where albums do not have any restrictions in terms of length has really found bands returning to the past and falling in line with what works best on vinyl.  I have no doubt that this album would sound even better blasting on my turntable with the way it is made. This is a really fun rock n roll album that is best enjoyed at a loud volume. Highly recommended.

‘Moving Target’ is available now.

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