{"id":3186,"date":"2017-01-26T15:00:12","date_gmt":"2017-01-26T15:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/review-aaron-keylock-cut-against-the-grain\/"},"modified":"2017-01-26T15:00:12","modified_gmt":"2017-01-26T15:00:12","slug":"review-aaron-keylock-cut-against-the-grain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/review-aaron-keylock-cut-against-the-grain\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Aaron Keylock – Cut Against the Grain"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Despite its ever-baffling profitability, countryfied ‘70s hard rock is a played out musical trend in the 21st century. Anything interesting in this genre was probably achieved between 1970 and 1975, and any revival is a pale substitute. So teenage guitarist Aaron Keylock<\/b> isn’t exactly off to a good start occupying this music space. But credit’s due where credit’s due: Keylock<\/b> is a very good guitarist, especially for his age. This shows throughout his debut, ‘Cut Against the Grain’<\/i>, in spades. While the music is largely uninteresting, the guitar work is fantastic in places.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the songwriting is as clich\u00e9d as can be. ‘All the Right Moves’<\/i> and ‘Down’<\/i>, open the album with a pair of boring hard-rockers, while the mid-paced ‘Medicine Man’<\/i> sounds like an Aerosmith B-side.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

‘Just One Question’<\/i> probably isn’t intended as a meta-commentary on Led Zeppelin’s well-documented plagiarism, but it’s lifting of the entire ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’<\/i> instrumental means it could be. It’s not that re-use of other artists’ music is inherently bad: Keylock<\/b> himself has described the track as a \u201cblues song\u201d<\/i>, so it makes sense. But he does absolutely nothing interesting with it, and this comes off as a lack of creativity.<\/p>\n

‘Falling Again’<\/i> at least makes good use of its ‘Sympathy for the Devil’<\/i>-inspired chants, and incorporates more intriguing musical elements than most of ‘Cut Against the Grain’<\/i>, standing out as one of the album’s better tracks.<\/p>\n

The album quickly descends into a mess of cut-and-paste blues-rock filler (‘Spin the Bottle’<\/i>, ‘Sun’s Gonna Shine’) and disingenuous ballads (‘Try’<\/i>, ‘No Matter the Cost’<\/i>). However, a late stand-out is ‘That’s Not Me’<\/i>, which at least sounds like it has some weight and earnest behind it.<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n

‘Cut Against the Grain’<\/i> is, for all it’s effort and sincerity, not a great album. Aaron Keylock<\/b> is far from untalented, and there are some interesting ideas now and again, but none of these are ever fully tapped into and the album falls far short of its potential.<\/p>\n

2\/5<\/p>\n

‘Cut Against the Grain’<\/i> by Aaron Keylock<\/b> is out now on Provogue<\/b>\/Mascot Label Group<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Aaron Keylock<\/b> links: Website<\/a>|Facebook<\/a>|Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n

Words by Alan Cunningham (@funeral_polis<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite its ever-baffling profitability, countryfied ‘70s hard rock is a played out musical trend in the 21st century. Anything interesting in this genre was probably achieved between 1970 and 1975, and any revival is a pale substitute. So teenage guitarist Aaron Keylock isn’t exactly off to a good start occupying this music space. But credit’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[2321,2322,2324,2323],"class_list":["post-3186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-album-reviews","tag-aaron-keylock","tag-cut-against-the-grain","tag-mascot-label-group","tag-provogue"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nReview: Aaron Keylock - Cut Against the Grain - Already Heard Staging<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Despite its ever-baffling profitability, countryfied ‘70s hard rock is a played out musical trend in the 21st century. 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