Track Dogs – Kansas City Out Groove
Mondegreen Records – Out Now
Since 2007 Madrid-based quartet Track Dogs have been creating acoustic music with a strong Latino accent that also successfully draws in folk, bluegrass, Americana and pop. Kansas City Out Groove follows their triumphant 2016 album, Serenity Sessions (reviewed here), an album so packed with sunshine it could be sold as a vitamin C supplement.
Opening the new album with a typically punchy Latin groove, The Deep End exudes a sultry heat as Howard Brown‘s trumpet and Dave Mooney‘s bass lead mandolin, guitar and percussion on an irresistible dance, while Garrett Wall leads the four-part vocal and the hint of menace in the lyrics they all conspire to disguise. Born In Love is a similar mix, opening with just a single guitar and voice before the sound opens up with percussion and layers of harmonies that should have fans of Steely Dan in raptures. Again, though, alongside that perfectly-honed, feel-good vibe, there’s a twist of twilight…
Tired of confusion, and this illusion
Torn into pieces, win or losing
I’m so done with hating, regurgitating
Seems so pointless, I won’t be baited
Track Dogs’ songs are collaborative, musically. Lyrics are mostly by Garrett Wall, and often in league with Cajón master and occasional banjo beast, Robbie K Jones. There isn’t always a shadow behind those lyrics, either. I Don’t Wanna Ruin It also has a west-coast feel. There’s more pop, though, behind this song’s positive message about savouring the joys of love.
The album’s title was inspired by a trip to the Kansas City Folk Alliance last year, and A Lucky Man in Kansas City compares that journey with some of the many others the band have embarked on. It’s a warming, soulful song delivered with the single-mike close harmonies Track Dogs do so well. As ever, where you’d normally find a bridge with a hot guitar solo, Howard Brown’s trumpet is there, and brass doesn’t get any hotter than this.
It wasn’t just a cracker of a song that grew out of that trip to Kansas, it was there that the band met Nashville Bluegrass quartet, The Barefoot Movement. Their contribution to Gonna Get My Way, not surprisingly, takes the album on a move towards the mountains with an injection of pace from Noah Wall‘s wild, wild, fiddle and a chance to add a feminine voice to those harmonies. Everything Went South takes us from the mountain to the desert, as Spaghetti Western takes a darkly comic turn.
But when you’re stealing cash
from another man’s stash
And you’re playing in the devil’s lair
With a wide-brimmed hat
And a fake moustache
I can get in most anywhere
There’s so much to enjoy on this album, wider ideas are punctuated by individual sparks of genius. There’s the lovely thrash of percussion in the Dead To Rights, the irresistible beats that follow a dramatic opening for Find Me A Rose, a rare electric guitar in Papa Joe, or Wall immersing himself in his character for My Big Pay Day. Ultimately, there’s a soothing of the senses as Long Gone brings the album to a conclusion on a softer note, and with some sage advice.
There really is something irresistible in Kansas City Out Groove, something that draws you in with every listen. It could be related to the 1972 Studer A80 analog recorder that somehow found its way from Abbey Road to Playground Studios, Madrid. It must have something to do with Garrett Wall having the same ability to blend a dark theme with a bright beat that makes the song writing of Lol Creme & Kevin Godley so memorable. Kansas City Out Groove is an album brimming with confident and accomplished musicianship, first-rate vocal performances, and an abundant, utterly infectious, relish of the music itself.
The band have a handful of UK dates at the end of this month…
Sep 28 – The Lantern, Halifax
Sep 29 – New Headingley Club, Leeds
Sep 30 – The Smiths Arms, Carlton, Stockton-on-Tees
http://trackdogsmusic.com/shows/