From the first notes of Sunny Waste, the latest effort from the Providence-based Quahogs, you find yourself unwinding. It’s not a mellow album at all, but it’s not stuffy–the band plays in a loose and connected way. Steve Donovan’s lead guitar work is a real highlight – he complements Steve Delmonico’s growling vocals perfectly with perfectly timed blues runs. He reminds me of the way Mike Bloomfield punctuated Paul Butterfield and Bob Dylan’s work in the mid-1960s. Delmonico writes the lion’s share of the lyrics, and they are straightforward and unpretentious.
I love the first song, “Fight or Flight”. It’s reminiscent of The Basement Tapes with a jukey piano and lyrics that are tough to make out but that effectively set the mood nonetheless. “Here I pray / that someday you’ll stay / and I won’t have to walk away / This has become a reoccurring thing / At least that’s how it seems. / Love is like one big fight or flight.” I love the play with rhymes and the way lines run into each other in this song, and Delmonico does that frequently on the album, playing around between the rhythm established by Ryan Gould (bass) and John Faraone (drums).
While there is a steady diet of songs that can be screamed over the loudest rowdy bar crowd, The Quahogs also manage to slow things down on songs like “Autumn Leaves” and one of my favorite songs on the album “Eyes of Blue.”
This band will bring to mind Deer Tick and Lucero and the album gets better with multiple spins. Give it a listen; it’ll get under your skin.