Monday, March 3, 2008

Album Review - The Duke Spirit

The Duke Spirit – Neptune
[Youarehere/Love Token; 04/02/2008]


The Duke Spirit is one of those bands that seemed to have dropped off the radar. However, while their country has been flooded with inadequate guitar bands, the ‘Spirit have been holed up in the studio creating the follow-up to their underrated debut, “Cut Across the Land”.

“Neptune” is quite a fun little rocking affair that manages to sustain the edge that the band created with their previous opus. Opening ditty, ‘Send A Little Love Token’, importantly sets a trend for the album to follow, with a unique quirky vocal from frontwomen, Leila Moss, while the riffs maintain their catchiness without diving in the realms of a pop sensibility.

Like every other term that is used in an attempt to pigeonhole a band, garage rock, although not the number one suspect, is what The Duke Spirit manages to create. This isn’t a pigeonhole by any stretch. In fact if anything, it’s a compliment, as the band does it quite successfully.

“Neptune” isn’t a far cry from its younger sibling, but its enough to equate in transcending above their modern contemporaries who attempt to fish in similar waters; particularly the ones in their own country, who really aren’t within earshot of them.

By Simon

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