{"id":8877,"date":"2019-10-16T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-16T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=8877"},"modified":"2019-10-11T17:37:31","modified_gmt":"2019-10-11T17:37:31","slug":"down-n-outz-this-is-how-we-roll-umc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=8877","title":{"rendered":"Down N Outz – \u2018This Is How We Roll\u2019 (UMC)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>As someone who has followed Def Leppard\u2019s career for nigh on four decades, I\u2019ve always kind of thought of Joe Elliott\u2019s Down N Outz as something he did between tours just to keep himself busy. Formed as a celebration of the music Elliott grew up listening to, I\u2019ve only casually listened to their previous two studio albums and live album simply because I\u2019m at a loss regarding how you could ever better those old Mott songs?<\/p>\n

The band\u2019s new album \u2018This Is How We Roll\u2019 is an altogether different proposition for me though as it features just one cover (of the Tubes\u2019 \u2018White Punks On Dope\u2019) and here we finally get to hear what the Down N Outz (also featuring The Quireboys’ Paul Guerin and Guy Griffin on guitar, Keith Weir on keyboards, with Vixen\u2019s Share Ross on bass, and Wayward Sons\u2019 Phil Martini on drums) actually sound like doing their own thang.<\/p>\n

Opener \u2018Another Man\u2019s War\u2019 actually takes me right back to the days when I first heard \u2018Wasted\u2019, it might only sound like Joe\u2019s day job band in vocals alone but its got that same organic vibe that those early Leppard songs had in spades, and whilst this is probably the most Mott sounding track on\u00a0 \u2018This Is How We Roll\u2019 rest assured it is anything but a pastiche. Likewise, the album\u2019s title track has an almost \u2018High N Dry\u2019 feel to it, and it is a pleasure to hear Elliott singing without multi-layered backing vocals. In fact, he\u2019s probably never sounded more relaxed and in control of his voice.<\/p>\n

The emotionally-charged piano-driven \u2018Goodbye Mr. Jones\u2019 is the type of tune guaranteed to give you goosebumps but for me, it is the much more subtle lyrical references during the jaunty pop of \u2018Creatures\u2019 that truly ticks all the boxes in the Bowie (yup that Mr. Jones) tribute department. This is easily my favourite track on \u2018This Is How We Roll\u2019 simply because it sounds like the band is having a wail of a time just doing what the hell they want to do.<\/p>\n

With Elliott and Ronan McHugh behind the desk the production values on \u2018This Is How We Roll\u2019 are awesomely 70s-tastic \u2013 lush where they need to be, like on the almost Carpenters meets Cats In Space pomp of \u2018Last Man Standing\u2019 or truly bonkers like on the Beatles-y musical interludes of \u2018Music Box\u2019 and album closer \u2018The Destruction Of Hideous Objects, Pt 3\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018Boys Don\u2019t Cry\u2019 meanwhile is a four to the floor rocker that puts me very much in mind of those \u2018Hysteria\u2019 era b sides where the band had the Lange production shackles loosened slightly and sounded like they were actually enjoying themselves. Look, I\u2019m not being critical of that multi-platinum selling 80s version of Def Leppard it\u2019s just that \u2018This Is How We Roll\u2019 took five years to record because of the respective members day job commitments \u2013 not because everything had to be multi tracked to the point of the song sounding almost secondary to the production. Just listen to the gospel tinged \u2018Walking to Babylon\u2019 or the dramatic \u2018Let It Shine\u2019 for examples of this in reverse, both are mid-tempo piano driven tunes that really do shine and could have very easily fitted into a Radio Caroline playlist back in the day.<\/p>\n

The album\u2019s only cover, \u2018White Punks On Dope\u2019 is also done very much in the Down N Outz style, and that in itself is what doing a cover should always be all about. Making it your own, so to speak.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had nothing but \u2018This Is How We Roll\u2019 on my stereo since it dropped a few days ago and my only slight criticism is that at twelve tracks in length (three of them being interludes and one a cover) I really could have done with hearing more of how the Down N Outz themselves really do roll. That\u2019s because when these now not so young dudes and dudette get the bit firmly between their teeth on the eight original songs contained here it really is like the Golden Age of Rock N Roll all over again.<\/p>\n

Glorious stuff indeed!<\/p>\n

Author: Johnny Hayward<\/p>\n

Buy ‘This Is How We Roll’\u00a0Here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As someone who has followed Def Leppard\u2019s career for nigh on four decades, I\u2019ve always kind of thought of Joe Elliott\u2019s Down N Outz as something he did between tours just to keep himself busy. Formed as a celebration of the music Elliott grew up listening to, I\u2019ve only casually listened to their previous two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8878,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[874,3115,542,3737,3738],"class_list":["post-8877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-def-leppard","tag-down-n-outz","tag-the-quireboys","tag-this-is-how-we-roll","tag-vixen","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8877"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8879,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8877\/revisions\/8879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}