Let me just say before i start this that i am not the specialist regarding surf music. I love Dick Dale and i was totally amazed when i saw Los Straitjackets live. And that’s about as far as my knowledge on surfmusic goes. But.. this album was sent to us although we try to concentrate on rockabilly.
The one thing i was able to find on youtube about this band was an interview were men’s toenails were point of discussion. This was the actual band i’ll talk about btw. There are more bands called ‘The Deadlies’. Find their myspace and you’ll find some more youtube. They have got their own tv show? Wow!
When i first put ‘Meet the Deadlies’ in to listen to the album i got it; No rockabilly here. Surf. Going back to those youtubes there is no doubt that they are surfers and they can play and they can sound good. You’ll hear a surfin’ strat there.
Not on the album though. I have a very strong urge to assume that the tracks on the album are not very well recorded or mastered. Why? In my opinion the mids and highs don’t ring, they don’t sparkle. Maybe it’s just me thinking a surf band should at least have a guitarsound with bucketloads of reverb. ‘Another Nashville Rash’ starts out with some kind of neat B-bender trick sounding reasonably country-ish and when the rest of the band kicks in the same old surf drumgroove is back. On bonus track ‘Pig Farm’ i thought i heard a familiar sounding lick. Turned out to be an original from one of my guitar masters, mr Paul Pigat (Aka Cousin Harley). The deadlies do that rockabilly song surfing style. Not my thing, i’ll stick to my master. ‘Guitar hero’ must be a track featured in that guitarhero computergame, that must be the reason why it’s called ‘Guitar hero’… must be a difficult to play song.
As a whole, this album doesn’t do it for me. I miss the bells and whistles, i miss vocals (and i do know that’s not common in surfmusic) because a lot of the tracks sound very much the same to me. So surfers, maybe something to check out. Rockabillies, ride the waves to find something different. But, they do have a Christmas cd out; The very deadliest Christmas!