Review:

on 2011-03-29 Michael_Morrison Said:

With around twenty years experience on the Chicago and New York City Music scenes, indie rocker Dave Ashdown has a phenomenal Curriculum Vitae of performing with live acts. And like most musicians whos careers span so much time, (and play more than one instrument) before too long theres a need to take the reigns and record some kind of solo project.
For me, Rock & Roll Vacation is a tale of two halves. Or should that be Act one and Act two? The album launches straight into driving, earthy bluesy rock with Dont Know What I Want This song is slow and dirty and pretty much sets the tone for whats to come. The opener is quickly followed up with We Gotta Fix it another dirty blues song, but this time with some funky chops and tasty licks. The drums have some low-fi distortion elements, which although confusing at first, seemed to fit with the song after a while. Add in some kids chanting along and the song starts to have some originality and charm. For me, the third song Time Out is a straight merging between the flavours of Tom Petty and The Rolling Stones.
The second half of the album utilizes more of Ashdowns acoustic guitar, which now comes to the foreground. From here, the album takes a turn, as the compositions begin to sound more original and far more interesting. Its as though He has proved he can rock out and now were going to really start showing off compositional prowess! I particularly liked the lilting rhythm of She Comes As She Goes and the stark loneliness of Alternative Days
The heavier songs on Rock & Roll Vacation have been heavily compressed and whilst this might help make the songs seem loud (compared with other artistes material) it also squeezes the dynamics, making the mix sound limp and one-dimensional. Occasionally, some of the effects used on the vocals seemed to degrade the sound here and there in a seemingly deliberate move. I also felt that the drums sounded quite inconsistent track by track. However, these are relatively minor points because the songs themselves are crafted well, and as a listener I remained entertained the entire time.

Overall this is a fair first effort from Dashdown, and a great debut in the sense that rather than playing a part in a project, he is now the whole of the project. Im sure he had a lot of fun writing and recording this album and Im sure the next offering from Dashdown will build on the success of this album.

J.D. Stefan


Rating: 8/10