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Not Quite Metal?

DANKO JONES JUST WANNA ROCK

 Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 11:00am by

danko jonesSometimes you just wanna rock. Sometimes you don’t want to think about manic time signatures, modes and modulations when you’re listening to music. Danko Jones — a Swedish Canadian rock band I admittedly don’t know much about — seem to understand that quite well. They’re all about the rocking.

Danko Jones have two songs streaming on their website; apparently they’re both from an album that was released in early 2008 so I’m way behind the ball here. Full disclosure; I only even decided to check this band out because they bought an ad campaign with us. But who cares? Dope bought an ad campaign with us too, and I’m 100% certain that no amount of money could ever make any of the MS staffers write good things about that band (except maybe Suarez when he’s feeling funny).

“Code of the Road” and “Sugar High” are two damn solid rock songs that I’ve listened to three times each already in the course of the past 2 hours. They’re kind of like a slightly mellowed out version of Deaf-era QOTSA… I likee much, enough so that I think I’ll go buy Never Too Loud right now.

-VN

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  • Mertahens

    They´re from Toronto i think…

    • DLT

      Yeah. Canadian, not Swedish. They’re just insanly popular in Scadinavia.

  • pigchop

    Straight ahead, no frills rock – perfect club band. Hey – the vocalist would suit Velvet Revolver. Someone call Slash and tell him that it’s time to end the mid-life crisis.

  • David

    I think I have a copy of We Sweat Blood around somewhere.

  • http://www.blacklodges.com steven

    yeah canadian and have been around for a sweet while too. straight up drinking rock, kind of like a cleaner version of FuManchu with funnier lyrics. Like AC/DC on speed mixed with a gallon of jack.
    5 stars from me, especially if I don’t want to think.
    It’s kinda like what Rollins said, rock n’roll is meant to achieve two things/make you do two things:
    Fuck on the floor and break shit. That’s what these guys do.

  • Pace

    saw them open for motorhead
    they put on a really solid show, highly entertaining balls out rock n roll
    :D

  • Dong

    Danko Jones for president. I recommend any of the previous albums though, this one’s a bit too polished and bland imo.
    John Garcia sings on two tracks btw, one on this album and one on the previous (Sleep Is The Enemy).

    • DC

      Oh yes John Garcia… <—- Hermano is one of the most underrated hard rock bands of the decade!

  • Hyperkulturemia

    They are indeed Canucks from my hometown of T.O. They’ve in the limelight a good decade now but it’s been a while since they’ve had a hit on the radio (not to say radio has any kind of relevence).

  • Bryan

    I wouldn’t buy Never Too Loud. The rest of the album is kind of weak. We Sweat Blood and Sleep is the Enemy are far better.

  • http://www.lainad.typepad.com Lainad

    Yeah, I saw Jones about 14-15 years ago in Toronto. While I am happy for his European success, I wonder if he felt that he had to make the move from Canada in order to make a living as a musician, or he simply just wanted to move. Does he get a better reception there, than here? As he was always kinda cheezy and full of false male bravado, his show was kitchy and fun and I think that Torontonians ( and Canadians in general) didn’t quite get his schtick.

  • jantje

    Saw these guys when Born a Lion came about, really good band then. Since then they have kinda gone downhill in my opinion. The really good stuff is on “my love is bold” or whatever that collection of songs from the old days is called. That was raw rock! So I advice Vince to check out songs like fucked up, never again and sugar chocolate.

  • http://www.last.fm/user/groverXIII groverXIII

    Wow, these guys are pretty good… steven was correct in thinking that they sound like Fu Manchu. I’m going to have to check these guys out a bit further.

  • matt

    Danko Jones will be supporting GN’R on their Canadian run

  • tomaas

    Also, I think they were once released on VideoFact, and their first video features a half-a-minute scene of the Mississaugan City Hall.

  • Mitchell

    Danko was an indie artist on videofact, yeah. I remember seeing those hilarious videos back when Muchmusic … y’know, played music. Canadians really didn’t get him, I guess.. a friend went to one of his shows, and he said there were about 30 people at this bar. I heard he got big overseas and…. played Wacken (?) or one of those gigantic metal summer shows in Europe

  • Tuhdeh

    And they rock the fuck out live, so thats a plus too! I listened to this band for years, and still do now. They rock, period.

  • http://marsariesattacks.com Marsaries

    Not metal but did appear on an Annihilator track a few years back, he did a duet with Angela Grossow of Arch Enemy on the album. Song is pretty cool IMO.

  • http://www.kingdomofnoise.blogspot.com MetalMatt

    I have I’m Alive and On Fire, Born a Lion and We Sweat Blood. I believe at one time they were referred to as Canada’s Best Live Band. I saw them once like 8-9 years ago. They rock pretty hard.