Sideburn -
The Demon's Dance (demo)
Review by John Pegoraro (StonerRock.com)
Self Released
Release date: TBA
I don't want to get sidetracked with a debate on what value a label can bring to a band in this era of the wild and lawless internet, but on a couple of levels, Sideburn's
The Demon's Dance begs the question “Why do you need one?”
The bombastic classic rockers are calling this ten track offering a demo, but its production is professional enough for me to consider it a finished product. Like their return-from-the-dead release
The Newborn Sun, these Swedes have enough of the prerequisite background in Kyussology to get tagged as stoner rock, but they're really more in line with the stadium ready sound of Zeppelin-influenced 80's rockers. Badlands is the first band that comes to mind, although that Ray Gillen-fronted group never had two obvious “Kashmir” homages on the same album, as Sideburn does with “Song for Hope” and “Shapes” (maybe I should name check Blue Murder instead). Then again, Badlands never got as heavy as Sideburn does with “Wings of Sorrow,” “Dyi'n Day,” the title track, and “Hold Me In Your Light,” so I guess there's the trade off.
But back to the original question – this is well done for what it is and with distribution just a couple of mouse clicks away, is the band doing itself a disservice by sitting around and waiting for some fat cat label head to scoop them up? I guess time will tell.
URL: http://www.myspace.com/sideburnsweden
