Simo - Simo

Rendition of Rs

It’s perhaps becoming a misnomer for me to keep referring to retro-rock – it should now be resurgent-rock as there are so many solo artists/bands performing guitar-led, and/or gravel-voiced generic rock done anew, if the oxymoron doesn’t drive you too crazy.

JD Simo is another in this welcome resurrection. His latest Simo is JD with a trio, so that too conforms to one of rock’s classic conventions. JD Simo is from Chicago originally, a guitar prodigy – a term he apparently dislikes – and has cut his rock/blues chops with the Dan Kelly Band out of Nashville.

I’m not going to over-analyse an album presenting the rawness of rock which doesn’t require much of a breakdown. One of the more varied and relatively complex tracks, however, is Young Man, Old Man with a tinge of psychedelia [great drumming too], and this adds depth to an album made up of largely in-your-face guitar smackers, like the strutting wah-wah and fuzzed rockfunk of That Same Thing. There’s requisite blues with What’s On Your Mind, a far-out instrumental with requisite drum solo Thank You Tony Jones, and it ends on Evil with a truly psychedelic fuzzed guitar solo.

Hell, I’m going to have to roll my rs: retro, resurgent, raucous, resurrected rock!