This is the third CD release from Copenhagen’s THE BREAKERS, a band that are firmly rooted in 1960s rock style similar to that of the early Rolling Stones, The Faces, and the original Yardbirds.
The band comprises Toke Nisted on vocals, Anders Bruus and Klaus Hobjerg on guitar, Jackie Larsen on bass and Thomas Stoisvig on drums. The band signed to Steven Van Zandt’s Wicked Cool records in 2008, and Steven makes an appearance on guitar on one of the tracks, and co-authored nine of the twelve tracks on the CD. The lyrics are clever, and the overall sound evokes the era of the 1960s without sounding retro or copyist, despite some similarities in vocal styles.
The opening track, the appropriately titled ‘Start The Show’ sounds very much in the vein of guitar rock, and has a riff that is ever so slightly similar to The Clash’s ‘Clash City Rockers’, and with a “Hey Ho, start the show don’t try to stop me coz I gotta go.” chorus, is bright and poppy and will guarantee a pub singalong very much the same as you get with The Ramones ‘Blitzkreig Bop’.
‘The Jerry Lee Symptoms’ which follows has some great “woo, woo” backing vocals that are very Stones-y ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ and again is a track that will have people singing along too:-
“Doctor, doctor, doctor I don’t need no help from you/ I’ve got the Jagger disorder, the Otis infection/ And the Jerry Lee symptoms too.”
So far so good, but after this, I did tend to find that the album seemed a bit samey in parts. That’s not to say that there aren’t some absolute gems here, but Toke’s vocal style is very similar to Faces era Rod Stewart, gravelly, smoky and soulful, which was unfortunate for me, because if I’d never heard of Rod Stewart, I’d have thought more of this.
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‘If You Please’ is an aching soul ballad and is brilliant, and the lyrics are spot on and completely up to date, banishing any accusation of being backward looking: - “They cut back at the factory, but that didn’t crack me/ I thought together we could make it through/ You told me honey; you don’t care about money,
But I believe you do.”
‘New York City’ evokes a slightly weary seediness, and being co-written by Van Zandt hits the nail on the head every time:
“Another closing time, another cigarette. Got a jazz habit and it ain't satisfied yet.”
Other tracks I liked were the easygoing anthem ‘If You Need Someone’, which harked back to the 1970s, and could easily be a hit, while the closing track ‘Forever’s A Long Time Gone’, is another beautiful track that really suits Toke’s voice and lets the album go out on a high: - “My soul is torn and frayed, and I won’t be back this way/ Never may be a long time, but forever’s a long time gone.”
As I said earlier, the negative points are that the album can be seen as a little bit samey, and the vocals do bring Rod Stewart to mind too quickly on most of the tracks. That said, The Breakers have released a really good album that will delight fans of bands like the Faces and the Stones and it stands firmly on its' own two feet most of the time.
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