Hot on the trail from their recent pair of excellent musical novella EP releases, Paradise Alone and Hell Together, The Sheepdogs prove their industrious creative acuity with another top grade album, Keep Out Of The Storm. These highly respected Saskatoon scenesters declare another winning hand of catchy riff heavy rock, blues and country inflected tunes with a heady blended mash of sweet harmonies and gritty rhythms.
Proclaiming themselves as a hybrid of Led Zeppelin and CSNY sounds just about right as Keep Out Of The Storm carves perfectly formed Blues Rock Country figures of music. There’s a nuanced clear eared lucidity to the memorable vintage melodies and heaps of guitar riffage. It reflects the influence of guitarist Ricky Paquette participating on his first full album recording since joining up in 2022. This is most evident on the title track with its throbbing, stripped back down in the dirt melodramatic ambience.
There are a few stoner rock tracks that expand on The Sheepdogs musical blueprint particularly on the sparky All I Wanna Do and the spooky Bad For Your Health. There’s a slight Thin Lizzy duel guitar motif to I Do that veers off road on a catchy country blues dusty trail. The Barefoot Jerry country funk sounding Playing All Night Long is a groove that sticks in the psychic jukebox like a warm handshake to the ears. As does the laid back blues grit of Take A Look At Me Riding, with soulful horns, that’s a classy nod in the direction of JJ Cale. Not forgetting the dreamy ambience revealed on Breezy and The Owl and the bluesy hornful soul jazz on the deeply engaging instrumental, The Yellow Line.
This new tuneful journey is set off by Nobody But You finding Ewan Currie’s warm and soulful voice tracking a beautiful musical map of songs. The ingredients of balanced instrumentation confidently back up a surfeit of strong melodies and the as ever outstanding vocals. Furthermore, there are more musical treats here for you to discover for yourselves…
Produced by Ewan Currie, this unpretentious on point sweet and mesmerising record speaks directly for itself. It is a homemade thing of beauty.
Written by Paul Davies
