Boston quartet Lock and Key released this record earlier this year on Deep Elm, and rock out in a Hot Water Music/Small Brown Bike kind of way. There are gruff vocals and plenty of angular guitars, as the band take a more rock-direction than most other Deep Elm bands. ‘Pull Up The Floorboards’ is a decent record actually – scratch away at the rough surface and you’ll find plenty of great songs underneath.
On tracks such as ‘303′, ‘Volatile’ and ‘Albatross’ there are plenty of dual-guitar riffs that make Lock and Key sound really good. I guess Hot Water Music comparisons will be thrown about because there are similarities both vocally and musically, but it’s more a lazy journalistic throwaway comparison than anybody ripping anyone off. I was reading a few other reviews of this record before I started writing this and comparisons were also made to Pilot To Gunner, so I downloaded a few of their songs and again there are similarities, so if you’re a fan of that kind of music then Lock and key will certainly appeal.
At a shade over 35-minutes in length, ‘Pull Up The Floorboards’ never outstays its welcome and proves to be a really solid record. Ryan Shanahan’s vocals are spot-on and add an extra layer of emotion to proceedings – it’s a record where you can believe in what the band are saying, there’s no falseness here. It’s typical of the standard you come to expect from Deep Elm really, a label that very rarely needs to bury any of their records under the floorboards.
www.lockandkeyrock.com
Deep Elm
Paul