A San Francisco Bay Area band who, I would guess, have been around the block a few times and on this CD show off a wealth of influences from across the past four decades in a highly enjoyable, if hardly ever unique, set of songs.
Named after their singer and songwriter Danny Sorentino, the material is a very personal account of his clearly sponge-like and extremely referential love of music. On hearing the album for the first time my original thoughts were drawn strangely towards that British axis of 70’s American influenced rock (what we today call Americana!), Brinsley Schwartz, Nick Lowe and Rockpile.
However, the debt to British bands that is acknowledged harks back to the previous decade, ‘British Blues’ paying homage to exactly that albeit in a rather mawkish ‘list’ song of the singer’s heroes from that 60’s era. A similar, but far better realised, exercise is ‘Dreaming BB King’ which, towards the end, merges seamlessly into a perfect pastiche of the great bluesman’s style.
But, when really at their best, The Sorentinos employ a kind of New York swagger and garage simplicity to their songs. ‘Black Leather Jacket’ comes on like a hybrid of New York Dolls and Flamin’ Groovies, ‘Somebody’ has a great gum-chewing, pimple-pickin’ vocal, and a glam strut perfectly suited to its two chords. Elsewhere, ‘Up Ain’t Worth The Down’ blasts off along the same city-street riff that drove Iggy’s ‘Passenger’ and ‘Gone In Nine’ sounds like Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers doing Nirvana.
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At sixteen tracks the album is too long and could easily shed a few tunes (the pointless reggae of ‘What Would I Do’ and the Jeff Lynne-like ‘List Of Things’ being two obvious choices) while increasing the overall quality and impact of the remainder. Ultimately though, it would be good to hear a band like The Sorentinos, clearly great musicians, at least trying to fuse their influences into something a bit more unique, something with it’s own identity.
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