The AOR revival rolls on with a tight, hard and tough dose of dual guitar attack, slashing riffs, soaring falsetto and the best vocal sneer since
Phil Lynott.
Diamond Nights are the band, Popsicle the album. The four dudes in the band must have been raised on a steady diet of classic rawk from the likes of
Thin Lizzy,
AC/DC,
Judas Priest,
Eddie Money, and
Alice Cooper. They recapture it so perfectly you know it was burned deep into their souls at a young age. Or it is all a hipster joke? Either way the record is fantastic from beginning to end. Lead-off track "Destination Diamonds" has to be the best song of the summer of 2005. It thunders, swoops and struts in ways nothing else has for a long time, at least not quite so convincingly, and it will unleash your inner rock & roll tiger by the end of the first chorus easily. By the end you will be trading in your suit and tie for greasy sideburns and a dirty bandana. The rest of the record suffers slightly by comparison but there are plenty of fine rockin' moments like the live wire attack of "It's a Shokka,"
Morgan Phalen's insane falsetto on "Needle in the Rice," the cheesy synths on the new wave-ish "The Girl's Attractive," as well as plenty of great songs like the very
Urge Overkill-sounding "Dirty Thief," the rollicking low-key ballad "Snakey Ruth," the corny but fun "Drip Drip," and "Saturday Fantastic," a fine addition to the Saturday night canon and the kind of cock-walking tune
the Stones wish they could wrap their moneyed hands around once again. The only downfall of the record is that the heart of it (including the two best songs, "Destination Diamonds" and "Saturday Fantastic") was already released on the Once We Were Diamonds EP. If you haven't heard it, no problem, but if you wore it out then the album has a bit of a recycled feel to it. Not enough to wreck the experience, though. Popsicle is still about as good as you could expect an AOR record to be in 2005 and it puts most of the other groups attempting the same trick to shame. At its best ("Destination Diamonds"!!!) it might even stand up next to the best work of the bands that so clearly inspired
Diamond Nights. ~ Tim Sendra