DATSUNS

New Zealand hard rockers the Datsuns deliver more bare-bones, high-energy rawk on the band's fourth studio effort, Head Stunts. Having stuck to their L.A.-style guns over the years, the Datsuns don't really change anything up here. In fact, Head Stunts features pretty much the same blend of raucous '70s influenced boogie, blues, and blood that the band has pumped out since its 2002 debut. That said, the band has developed a better sense of rock & roll drama over the years and the album climbs and drops with the pleasing rollercoaster rhythm of a live show. Cuts like the driving, punky, minor-tuned anthem "Human Error" and the brooding Ennio Morricone-esque uptempo ballad "Ready, Set, Go!" should please longtime fans of the band and bring to mind a more skittish and poppy version of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. And although the general point of all this is to keep the van 'a rockin', there are a few tracks of dark atmosphere and prog rock menace amongst the cock rock rave-ups that helps push the overall proceedings out of the garage and onto the stage. To these ends, the Pink Floyd inspired mid-album epic, "Eye of the Needle," is a moody and cinematic laser show of a rock song and probably the heaviest thing the band has ever recorded. Matt Collar.

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