Plain Ride — Strange Trial

Plain ride is a band including Janne Westerlund, a member of Musique Machine faves Circle, as well as Pharoah Overlord, Chainsmoker and Sweetheart. Like Circle, they take off in different genre trajectories. Yet where Circle go everywhere from prog-rock to Kraut rock, drone and even a bit of metal edge, Plain Ride add more prominent late sixties 60's to mid seventies American rock and folk influences.

Some of these tunes have a bit of a Rolling Thunder era Dylan feel to them, but try as I may, it's difficult to pin down any other specific bands of the era to compare them with, but that hardly matters. The warm production, intelligent songwriting and thoughtful lyrics make this album a pleasant adventure from front to back. Lest you think this is simply a jump on the current folk rock bandwagon, your thoughts will be quickly quelled. Just as Circle enthusiastically attack every direction with abandon reserved only for the most un-jaded musicians, Plain Ride approach vintage rock music with a wide angled lens.

These tunes, though on the surface somewhat simplistic, revert to lock grooves, and a fair bit of Neu-isms, meaning there's a warm analogue glow to the proceedings. The band is superb as well; the guitars are thick and when the riffs splinter into lead breaks, they're spot on. For once, the band's self-description pins it down: "The choice of idiom - genre, style, influences, etc. - is circumstantial, meaningless in itself. First and last, there is the need to communicate, by whatever means happen to be at hand. The need to dance, to play to sing". I couldn't have said it any better than that.