Golden Animals - Darkness & Light

“I’m leaving tomorrow, I’ll love you tonight.” Lyric could be from Townes Van Zandt, or any number of rock and roll groups who floated through towns in the 1960’s. Since this is 2008, why bring this all up? Because Rock & Roll is being played again more and more, and Golden Animals takes in all of them. Beatles, Byrds, Turtles, and yes, even Eric Burden meets some tasty John Fogerty licks. “There’s joy and there’s sorrow, there’s weakness and might.” I’ve thought about these songs for awhile. There’s nothing adventurous, but I’ve decided that’s the point. Gotta love anyone who points to the “temples of light”. These folks are not making a tribute to the 60’s album, they are simply making a fun album that happens to have some flavors borrowed from the classic rock stations these artists grew up listening to. I picked Darkness & Light to feature because if these guys go on to make more albums my bet is they will quickly grow into a sound uniquely their own, and this cut is the least identifiable with other artists on the record. Well, maybe a little bit of Tommy James. What I’ve decided to focus on is the fact that the early beatle albums had many covers of soul records, the early stones were covers of blues records, etc etc. They showed their roots gleefully, and we still love them for it. So, welcome Golden Animals. Thanks for being so open about sharing your roots & I am looking forward to your growth as artists to learn to appreciate more and more with each album. Shoutouts for the blues-rock of Steady Roller (“no secret left to hide”), the folk flavors of Ride Easy (“load a flower in your gun”), the creedence surf jeffersonairplane flavors of Try On Me (“free your mind and win a pony”), the rocked-up version of the traditional folk gospel tune (Don’t Let Nobody) Turn You ‘Round), and the guitar blues picking and sliding through Follow Me Down (“they’ll be magic on the mountain for all the kids”). Golden Animals