Tomorrow's Hits could be considered as The Men's very own
Exile on Main St. Of course, I'm not going to argue that this ultimately modest record actually comes close to the indestructible classic that is
Exile, but the latest of the Brooklyn fivesome is characterized by the same bashfulness, sleezyness and just pure fun of the Stones in their glory days. To get to the point:
Tomorrow's Hits is the fifth consecutive smash from The Men.
Don't expect a radical style change this time around, however. This new album continues in the same vain as the countryrock-inspired
New Moon from last year. Still, the band just rocks out harder here than on
New Moon and the songs sound a hefty lot sloppier; a consequence of recording the album directly on tape, without the use of overdubs or fancy studio wizardry. The best example is 'Pearly Gates' - the aural equivalent of an intense bar fight, broken beer bottles and thrown chairs included - where the fine gentlemen already push things up a notch after the half-second introductory riff. Elsewhere, the addition of exuberant harmonica, a full-fletched brass section and what seems to be the personal piano of Jerry Lee Lewis really fleshes out their southern rock sound on tracks like 'Dark Waltz', 'Another Night' and 'Different Days'. On
Tomorrow's Hits, The Men have succeeded in encapsulating the pure joy and satisfaction of playing music together as a band, and that's the biggest reason why the record is such a success.
In that regard, it's easy to keep a blind eye to the lyrical cliches of
"guitars, whiskey and the whole county bloody". In fact, these actually elevate the charm of the whole album. As a disclaimer: the urgency and agression of
Immaculada and
Leave Home are finally fully lost. Instead, there's a naive kind of melancholy seeping through the tracks.
"I used to get so angry" and
"I hate being young" spring forth as the central themes of
Tomorrow's Hits. Gone is the angsty hardcore momentum of
Leave Home. Therefore, the persistent nostalgics to days gone by can ignore this new record without remorse.
But me, on the other hand, I'm again fully sold.
Tomorrow's Hits is anything but earth-shattering, but play it loud and become addicted to one of the most refreshing, down-to-earth and unpretentious rock bands operating today.
