Reviews

Danko Jones

Sleep Is The Enemy

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Review Date: 2006-03-05

I was first introduced to Danko Jones when I heard the song that they did for the Toronto Blue Jays. The song wasn't great but it was certainly worth hearing for a Blue Jays fan, its the type of music that could really pump you up before a ball game and that’s the energy you would want to fucking win right? Anyways the point is Danko Jones can rock, they are an aggressive rock band and I think they are pretty good at what they do. If you are someone that has been looking for an album with a sicke rock guitar performance then you will likely enjoy what is on the Sleep Is The Enemy album. Danko Jones is a Canadian group, so as always I like to be able to give credit to anyone that makes a name for themselves in the Canadian music scene.

Some of the stuff that is on this album is borderline hard rock, I happen to enjoy that side of this band because it gives me an idea of what they might bring to a live performance. The last album was called We Sweat Blood, I thought this was a pretty good album. I never owned it though, I just heard it whenever I was over at Dan's. Come to think of it its probably a band that I should own an album of considering they are Canadian and are a solid band with sicke energy. The band is composed of three dudes, all of them look pretty scary in general, or angry. I think I'm unsure what exactly they are going for, but one thing is for certain I think that I will have to purchase an album from these guys, the saga of Danko Jones is definitely a saga enough to own in my CD collection.

The first track is a sweet way to start off a disc like this, its called "Sticky Situation". Lotsa raw energy and hard guitar riffs, its something that I like to see in this aggressive style of rock. The song is about pretty much what the title is, except he gets a bit more specific about things in the lyrics. What the sticky situation has become is someone's girlfriend is cheating on him with some dude that she works with and as such the amount of anger or frustration that this person is feeling is also conflicted with love, so its a big decision apparently. I think its a simple decision, I mean she did stuff with another guy so just throw that to the curb for pick up and don't worry about it. The guitar is sicke, its one of those delayed guitar riffs where there is a good second or two between the repetition of the riff. Near the end of the track though there’s a guitar solo that is almost a minute long and its friggin' awesome, definitely a good way to commence the album if you ask me.

The fourth song might be my favourite track on the disc, but there are plenty of reasons for this. The song is called "She's Drugs", which is a pretty cheesy name for a track but I think just about every band like Danko Jones has a song that is similar in topic matter. Apparently women are the medication in whatever situation this happens to be. I don't know that I would prescribe this for everything, but I mean after a hard days work I do usually feel like coming home to a good blowjob...err I mean warm embrace of a caring woman that sucks my ….. nevermind. Ok that was vulgar, but come on now, he can't be talking about love, all he is saying is that after one look he's addicted to this girl, so its pretty superficial to begin with. Anyways this song has a wicked pace to it and Danko’s singing is fucking wicked too. The chorus is the catchiest part of the whole song and this is probably the biggest reason why I like this song so much. The fact that there is no guitar solo didn't even seem to bother me at all, but the fact that it was just used more or less to maintain the pace of the track bothered me a bit because of how badass the guitarist in this band is.

The sixth track is "First Date"; this song tries to answer the age old question about whether or not you should kiss on the first date. Actually the chorus more or less tries to ask and answer that question where the verses are more dedicated to describing how he would date you. Come to think of it most of the lyrics in these songs are pretty lame. But the song is alright, he keeps asking 'the girl' if she kisses on the first date, but then after he asks her he tells her that he does. Almost as if she doesn't really have an option in the whole thing because he is just so damned irresistible. The guitar as always is kicking in the song. I think the only complaints that I will give to a band like Danko Jones and the way they use their guitarist is that they don't use him enough on the songs. I know that’s totally incorrect, because he is a big presence on most of the songs, just I like the guitar work so much that I wish he would be more of the focus than the lead singer. Too many of the lyrics are focussed on winning girls hearts or dating them or some other lame love related shit.

The seventh track is called "Invisible" but I think its worth mentioning because of the lyrics and not so much the actually song itself. The song is about all these things that he would do for this girl just to get her attention because at the moment it seems like he is invisible to her. He would crash his car, burn down his house, sell his soul, break his dick, rip off his nuts, max his credit cards, hell this guy would do just about everything to get this piece of tail. I mean I'm the first to admit that girls make heterosexual males and lesbian females go wild, I mean that’s a give in right? But do we need to write an entire album dedicated to the same topic? I know that I got sick of the vocals on some of the songs on this disc from time to time, this is a particular song that stuck out though as far as the lyrics and my tolerance for them went.

The last song, number eleven, is called "Sleep Is The Enemy". This song is pretty sweet, the energy is epic and the guitar is hard and gritty. Right from the start of this song it is kicked into high gear. There’s no stopping or pauses throughout the course of the track, everything is dedicated to keeping the speed of the track at mach three. There is a bit of yelling actually in this song on the part of the vocals, but that’s neat because throughout the rest of the album its not really something that they do so its a good change if you ask me. This is a shorter song though. Its actually not much over two minutes but for a song that isn't quite that long is happens to be one of the better ones on the disc, and its not even one that is whining about some girl and that is perhaps the best part of the song for me. There is one thing I'll say though, its that the topical matter is wrong; sleep isn't the enemy, sleep is amazing, if I could sleep for two hours more each day I doubt I would hate everything, well I would probably just hate everything a little bit less then I already do.

Tracks to Steal: "Sleep Is The Enemy", "First Date", "She's Drugs", "Sticky Situation", "Natural Tan", "The Finger"

What did I think of the second album I have heard by Danko Jones?
Was it up to my hard rocking standards? Judgment Passed: 8.2 (

Score: 8.2

This album is totally decent, I'm encouraged by how good the guitar is on this album, it makes me think that I would like the other albums a lot more than I remember. However I'm hoping the other albums aren't as focussed on making all the lyrics in the songs basically the same.

- Brandon