Boy, it's hard to keep a band together these days. This band from Oakland, California, The Night Herons consist of Dana Berry on vocals, guitar and drums, Mike Assenzio on guitar and Larry Huene on guitar and drums but Larry's already left the band to move to Chicago. And then there were two...
A heron is a bird, like a kind of stork, and I guess a bird's gotta fly. That's a shame because The Night Herons' new 15 track CD, Relevant Noise, sounds like they'd be a fun live band. The simple guitar, bass and drum sound is clean enough to let the lyrics cut through while hard enough to let you know these guys started in a garage somewhere in Oakland and have no intention of flying too far from that Bay Area (Moby Grape, Blue Cheer) vibe. With two drummer/guitar players swapping instruments throughout both their CD and live shows, they have twice the variation in sound with half the personnel. A straight ahead guitar rock band.
The Night Herons' press kit refers to the "social content" of their lyrics but to be honest I usually space out to the music and can't understand most song lyrics anyway so I'll have to take their word for it. Besides, at my age I really am not looking for young rock musicians to set my political priorities for me. I just wanna dance. Okay, I can't dance either but I do appreciate a guitar solo now and then as well as some nice harmonies and Relevant Noise has both. And despite the CD title and their self description as raw sounding garage rock they really are a very tight, relatively clean sounding three piece with some vocal work that borders on pretty. Good hooks, melodic melody lines, pleasant vocals and simple production puts this into the 90s rock bag along with The Foo Fighters, Weezer and their ilk.
You can thank (or blame) Dana Berry for the production. His press kit takes pain to point out his problems with alcoholism. The song Let Me In addresses this problem but I personally don't really appreciate something like that being something of note in a band's bio. Most bands can put addiction to something in their bio but I would like to think they have something else that makes them unique. I know plenty of people who drink too much but that doesn't make them interesting or their music something special and as someone who has had to work with folks who expect special treatment due to their problem I suppose I'm a little irritated by the subject.
Night Herons perform Bad Idea at their record release party at the Ivy
Room on August 19, 2017. From the album Relevant Noise. Band members:
Dana Berry gtr/vox, Mike Assenzio lead gtr, Larry Huene drums, Brad
Assenzio bass & Dave Leonard tamborine.
You can thank (or blame) Dana Berry for the production. His press kit takes pain to point out his problems with alcoholism. The song Let Me In addresses this problem but I personally don't really appreciate something like that being something of note in a band's bio. Most bands can put addiction to something in their bio but I would like to think they have something else that makes them unique. I know plenty of people who drink too much but that doesn't make them interesting or their music something special and as someone who has had to work with folks who expect special treatment due to their problem I suppose I'm a little irritated by the subject.
Night Herons should probably play up their playing and songs more than their nasty personal habits since it's their music that's what's really entertaining about them. In a past age these guys would probably be heard on Modern Rock radio but these days young musicians can't come to you via the airwaves, you gotta go seek them out. But how can you do that if you don't know they're out there to be discovered? Oh yeah, that's right. That's what blogs like Rock & Roll Rehab are for. Silly me.
Thanks for the review! Sorry to annoy you but glad you dug the music. That's what counts right?
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