An Album You Should Hear
Rookie — Rookie (2020)
Music
Rookie — Rookie (2020)
Chicago-based independent label, Bloodshot Records, is peerless when it comes to having some of the best independent artists.
Rookie — a roots-rock band that is the perfect soundtrack for casual Frisbee lovers …and for hotboxing in your car just beforehand — is one of those artists.
Imagine if Richard Linklater’s brilliant ode to 1970s suburbia, Dazed and Confused wasn’t a movie, but an actual sound …that’s what Rookie sounds like.
The Chicago sextet’s debut album is …wait for it …alright, alright, alright.
Rookie blends historical rock in the same way a Jackson Pollack painting blends colors. It may appear or sound messy, but it’s seamless and deliberate.
And with both Rookie and Pollack, there’s a lot of color in there.
A rudimentary look at Pollack’s work may lead you to believe it’s just paint thrown on a canvas. To a large extent, you’re not wrong; however, Pollack wouldn’t have had the testicular fortitude to do that without an understanding of everything that came before him.
On the band’s self-titled full-length debut, Rookie, you hear some of The Band, The Replacements, Sweet, Get Your Wings era Aerosmith, Cheap Trick, Reconstruction of the Fables era R.E.M., Uncle Tupelo/Wilco/Son Volt — the list is long.
Either that list of artists is gonna whet your appetite or it won’t — it whets mine.
This is not to say that the six-piece from Chicago doesn’t have its own sound; they do. A band this good can only be this good by, consciously or subconsciously, having a solid grasp of rock music history. The shitty bands copy that while the best bands distill that knowledge and then have the chops to create something their own.
Rookie falls firmly in the latter.
Rookie writes taut, well-crafted songs deeply rooted in the best sounds of rock. And they only use the best ingredients — vocals, bass, drums, the Hammond B-3, and the unicorn of most modern rock bands, the triple-guitar assault.
It could be argued that if this were 1972, Rookie would’ve been label mates of The Allman Brothers Band on Capricorn Records. As such, they would’ve been staples at Capricorn founder Phil Walden’s annual “Barbecue and Summer Games” at his home in Macon, GA.
If you listen to Rookie’s album at the right volume and close your eyes, you can feel the summer heat and smell the BBQ.
Rookie isn’t looking to reinvent the wheel because they understand that the best rock and roll doesn’t need to. Also, there’s a reason no one has improved on the wheel’s simplicity — not even Elon Musk (shhh, don’t tell him that); there’s NO reason to improve it. And like the wheel, when rock and roll is done right, the ride is smooth AF.
There is a slew of quotes on simplicity, but here are a few that sum up what makes Rookie so appealing:
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
— Albert Einstein“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
— Leonardo da Vinci“Nature is pleased with simplicity.”
— Isaac Newton
The album’s first single, “I Can’t Have You, But I Want You,” is the perfect gateway drug into Rookie. And the accompanying video? Priceless. We follow a little girl around purchasing AC/DC’s High Voltage album, discovering the joys to be found (and heard) in a Gibson SG, and then stealing it.
This video isn’t a cautionary tale of rock and roll; it’s a celebration of it!
If you want an introduction of what the band sounds like, I will point you to the 1:33 instrumental aptly named “Introduction II,” which flows flawlessly into “One Way Ticket” — you won’t find a more rewarding 4:30 in the 2020 rock and roll musical database. Full stop.
CRITICS:
Maeri Ferguson in No Depression — “Rookie knows how to make an absolute party out of their arrangements. This is the kind of album you know will sound incredible live. Lead singer Max Loebman fires on all cylinders with his voice even-keeled at times (“Elementary Blues”) and then boisterous and full throttle at others (“Miss United States”)… Rookie may just be getting started, but they’re already miles ahead.”
Brian Q. Newcomb in The Firenote — “It totally works, and with killer tracks like “Hold On Tight” and the six-minute album closer “E Jam” to remind us of an era when guitar players were ‘gods,’ which suggests that Rookie have the goods to go the distance and become all-stars.”
Now that we appear to be coming out of this pandemic, it’s going to be exciting to see Rookie live. I would bet dollars to donuts that they crush these songs.
Rookie is the real deal and I think three words sum up the totality of Rookie’s self titled debut: