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Shades & Peters

Let The Record Spin

Written by: PP on 15/01/2015 22:04:19

Shades & Peters is a collaborative project by Rene Shades of Danish heavy metal group Pretty Maids and Martie Peters from Danish hard rockers Push, hence their name. Their project is radically different from either of their main bands, however, focusing on its efforts on classic rock with a slight pop rock twist, most comparable to the works of Bryan Adams and Bruce Springsteen (especially the larger-than-life saxophone intrusions), but a song like opening track "Comin' Around" displays a strong The Police influence as well.

Debut album "Let The Record Spin" features an all-star supporting caste of guest musicians which reads pretty much the entirety of Rod Stewart's backing group from Jimmy Z to Jim Cregan, as well as members from Bryan Adams' band and other well-known musicians. With a star-studded lineup like that, you'd probably expect something fairly good to come out of it, right? Sadly, this is not the case. "Let The Record Spin" is a classic case of a band playing a sound that feels totally dated, absolutely irrelevant and hopeless as we are entering 2015. That the group is rehashing classic rock ideas that have been around for five decades now is one issue, but really it boils down to the songs just not being good enough. There's just no way you'd rather be listening to material by Shades & Peters instead of opting one of the older greats and their classic records instead, which are not only better produced, better played, and more memorable, but contain some of the biggest songs written in rock and roll. If that doesn't sound like a fair comparison, then perhaps you shouldn't be playing music that would've made sense to have been released in the 70s and maybe the 80s.

Now, I'm not saying it's not possible to write good, even great records in the vein of the old greats, but you absolutely need to modernize the sound in order to sound at all relevant. Case in point: Gaslight Anthem's interpretation of Springsteen is excellent, as is Wolfmother's retrospective rock'n'roll looking back towards the Zeppelin era. That's not something that's happening here, so the 60 or so minutes that the record lasts feels almost unbearably long as the band very obviously reference past greats without matching their songwriting - especially the vocal delivery is forgettable despite being clearly Bryan Adams inspired. Moving onto relevant stuff.

Download: We Drove All Night Long, Let The Record Spin
For the fans of: Bryan Adams, The Police, Rod Stewart, Bruce Springsteen
Listen: Facebook

Release date 13.10.2014
Target Records