The Dead Daisies – Locked and loaded

Billed as “The covers album”, locked and loaded is exactly what the cover says – a collection of cover versions. Excluding their debut album the band’s subsequent releases have all come with a couple of cover versions included, and this release takes those 6 covers and adds 4 more.

So why do a covers album? It’s obviously not because they’re bored of writing their own material, it’s simply their way of paying tribute to the bands and songs that influenced them. They’ve not just gone for a faithful reproduction of the original either – they’ve done them all Dead Daisies style, so lots of guitar and powerful vocals.

The album kicks off with “Midnight Moses”, probably the least well known of the songs here.

Next up is a “Howlin wolf” cover that sounds a long way from the Blues classic with it’s powerful rock sound. It’s a great version of the song, and I always like to see covers where the band does their own thing like this.

Next up is the classic “Fortunate son”. Wisely with it being such a well knwon song they haven’t made radical changes. Instead it just feels like a slightly harder heavier version of the original.

The Who’s “Join together” seems an obvious choice for including in a live set with it’s chorus of “Whon’t you join together with the band” just crying out for an audience sing-a-long. They’ve dropped the harmonica and synth that are in the original and stuck to guitars and the result is how you’d imagine the Who playing it live – loud and heavy.

“Helter skelter” is another song virtually everyone knows and I’ve heard plenty of cover versions over the years and the various versions seem to have encouraged Dead Daisies to really go to town making it their own, and they’ve done a great job – it’s very different from The Beatles original and definitely has much more of a Dead Daisies sound.

“Bitch” is an interesting choice – of all the Rolling Stones songs, it’s not one many people would have picked as their first choice to cover, but it’s obviously got an appeal to musicians as KISS Bassist Gene Simmons based their hit “Deuce” on the bassline from this Rolling Stones song. The Dead Daisies have chosen well as choosing a more obscure song means people don’t compare it minutely to the original and it’s easier for them to give it a Dead Daisies sound.

“American band” was recorded live and sounds great. It’s a well known classic and they haven’t messed with it too much, just making it a bit heavier.

The second Beatles cover on the album is “Revolution” and once again they’ve taken a well known song and made it heavier.

The Neil Young classic “Rockin’ in the free world” featured here is a live recording from the Przystanek Woodstock” festival which must surely be the largest music festival in the world with an audience of half a million people. As if that wasn’t special enough, the band were performing with the 60 piece Gorzow philharmonic orchestra and that really adds a lot of richness to the sound.

The “Highway star” cover really is superb and was recorded live at a show in Zagreb. It’s certainly got that live feel to it even without the crowd noise, and is the highlight of the album for me.

It’s a great covers album – the band have given the songs a Dead Daisies sound but without spoiling what made the songs great in the first place.

“Locked and loaded” will be released on 23rd August 2019

Track listing:

1. Midnight moses (Alex Harvey cover)
2. Evil (Howlin Wolf cover )
3. Fortunate son (Creedence clearwater revival cover)
4. Join together (The Who cover)
5. Helter skelter (The Beatles cover)
6. Bitch (Rolling stones cover)
7. American band (Grand funk railroad cover)
8. Revolution (The Beatles cover)
9. Rockin’ in the free world (Neil Young cover)
10. Highway star (Deep purple cover)