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When something you love changes while keeping all the charm that has always drawn you to it, it means we're talking about a well-done job, but more importantly, it was done by someone who has enchanted you with their style.
Looking for Jeff Dahl, a true senator of punk and undeniably an icon of gritty, rough rock on the level of Stiv Bators and Johnny Thunders (with the difference that he’s still breathing), in this new pseudo-acoustic album of his - where he takes a break from the theory that has always accompanied him of "three chords and a bad attitude" - means finding him present at 100%, perfectly recognizable and in perfect form, wonderfully at ease in such a new guise that you would never have thought it possible for him, it's truly fantastic.
Released last April by Steel Cage Records, "Battered Stuff" is - as Dahl himself says - an "acoustic-based" album, where our former Angry Samoans confirms himself as a great rock native and true man of the hardest and purest underground, doing everything by himself in his home studio (the Dahlhaus) in Arizona, from where he spreads punk pollution to the four corners of the world. It's evident that if he thought it would take two weeks and then, by force of adding a little thing here and there, it took him six months, it must have been - as he himself admits - that the pieces he wrote took on a life of their own and became the true masters of the work. The result, two years after the very angry and very hard "Street Fighting Reptile" is surprisingly pleasant, easy, fun, and complete. Blues, folk, rock, in that somewhat retro production style that for Dahl is a trademark. His "aurea mediocritas" punk style that has never disappointed his fans here tinges with a kaleidoscope of tones, becoming a beautiful multicolored creature that never forgets to be a "JD" product.
Listen to "Vaguely Picasso" and tell me if it also sounds to you like Graham Parker playing with the Stones, and if you don't think that "California Blues" is a piece with glam reminiscences (T-rex?), then moving through harmonicas and piano to Hot Tuna and Nikki Sudden (to whom the beautiful piece "Outta Luck" is dedicated) until you realize, in the end, maybe after the delirious "Sandwich" ("You got chicken, I got bread...) that yes, it's always just Jeff Dahl. Amazing!
1. I Wouldn't Change A Thing
2. Vaguely Picasso
3. California Blues
4. Sandwich
5. Damaged Goods
6. Before The Storm
7. Ain't Drinkin' Myself To Death No More
8. I Beg Your Pardon
9. Outta Luck
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