Roadsaw
Nationwide (MIA)
by Scott Hefflon
“Boston rock” seems to mean pop to a lot of people, and while we’re (un)fortunate enough to have a handful or two of almost household-name pop/rock bands spawned by what to the outside world may look like a fertile breeding ground, it’d be criminal to overlook the darker underbelly of rock here in Boston. The list is long of bands still struggling to get a gig in a city with fewer clubs every passing year, not to mention the fact that Puritanism seems to’ve affected “the kids” more than they realize – all the tattoos, piercing, fucked-up hair cuts, and baggy clothing in the world doesn’t seem to help fans MOVE when the band starts playing, but the point of this ink is to review Roadsaw.
They’re loud, they keep it simple, they’re tuned low and mean, they stomp all over the stage (usually drunk, as is the audience), they have a sense of humor (I’ll never forget the singer stumbling to the mic to introduce a song, having poor depth perception and smashing his face into the mic saying, “Ugh. Microphone,” and grinning like a little kid who’s just scribbled across the length of the living room wall and is damn proud of his work), and, um, people seem to really dig “stoner rock” right about now. Having a revolving door of Boston’s best hard rockers (not sissy glam shit, I mean the heavy shit that may go in and out of fashion as it mutates yet will never, never go away), Roadsaw may not be the most innovative band in the world, but I really doubt that’s their intention. Roadsaw have a heavy groove (actually, they’d be comfortable on The Music Cartel, and they have a cut on the In The Groove compilation), and while references to Sabbath are inevitable, it’s really more a ’70s rock thing, filled with melody, passionate, masculine singing, and chunky guitar work (not the synthetic “new metal” wall of guitars; this is the rich, analog-sounding revving of a finely-tuned muscle car). While production is a little more focused on groove than vocal spotlighting (can you picture Sabbath with Ozzy lost in the mix, or Ian Gillen’s powerful bellow tucked behind Deep Purple’s sonic roar?), Roadsaw seem to like it that way (I think their Curve of the Earth 7″s and full-length,1,000,000, sounded similar). So, for what it’s worth, this is what rock sounds like in an age when “rock” is so often confused with “alternative radio pop/rock,” or some such meaningless category. This is sweaty, honest, not especially clean or wholesome, primal rock.
(PO Box 1236 Canal St. Sta. New York, NY 10013)
