The Flash Express – Introducing the Dynamite Sound of… – Review

The Flash Express

Introducing the Dynamite Sound of… (Hit It Now!)
by Brian Varney

Fast and super-furious uptown action-rock bashing with punk-rock energy, the kinda thing that always sounds great comin’ outta the speakers when you first push play and crank the volume, so much so that you don’t notice the lack of tunes until four or five tracks in. That’s kinda how I first felt about this album but, astonishingly, two or three plays teases the hooks outta hiding so by the time you’ve played it three times, you’re hopelessly hooked. Yeah, eleven tracks and the only breathing room is the bizarre shuffle version of the Grandmaster Flash classic “The Message,” but they’re young and it’s their first album, so you kinda expect such rambunctiousness. The really nice thing is that, although damn near everything is played a million miles an hour and the singer screams himself raw, so David Johansen-like, you can hear the many potential growth opportunities presented by the way the band writes. I can totally envision horn charts and female background singers on a lot of these songs, and you can tell that the songs would sound good slowed down, which is usually a pretty good indicator that speed and volume are being used not as a disguise for lack of talent but simply as an honest expression of youthful vivacity, rage, sexual frustration, etc. This is a good album and I look forward to seeing ’em live (they’re touring with The Bellrays, so they’d better smoke live), but I really look forward to hearing where they might go with the next album or two.
(www.hititnowrecords.com)