The Phoids – Review

The Phoids

(Ng)
by Scott Hefflon

It’s kinda funny, when you’re finally confronted with true-blue rock’n’roll, you don’t really know how to react. I mean, this could either be the product of the suburbs (as in, like, a bar band making ends meet playing requests – live kareoke, for all practical purposes) or perhaps the spirit of rock has always brewed beneath the ever-present, now-sickeningly-sweet alternarock surface, and it’s finally percolation time. Not a lot of bands can get away with what The Phoids do. Most would be laughed out of any self-respecting club, back to whatever backwoods rock they crawled out from under (so let’s not start a trend here, OK? This is the exception.). While, perhaps the name sounds more punk than rock, these boys are honky-talk piano and country twang, simply lyric-strong guitar rock through and through. Comparison to Neil Young are inevitable, mostly because when the singer tries to sing in that range, he cracks as many notes as The Godfather of Grunge does. But also like Mr. Young, the stories within the songs ring out clear and honest, unpretentious in an age filled with bands so used to towing the line like the engine that could, they don’t realize their music, their “passion,” is little more than a product filed between A and Z. The Phoids enjoy what they do (and while that’s often not nearly enough, a mere exercise in self-indulgence), and they do it well. They play rock. Pure, but not simple.