The Weekenders

The Weekenders are definitely as laid back and as easy as their name would suggest, and their album ‘Don’t Plan On’ will keep you intrigued from the first pluck to the final fade.

I love a band that keep it simple on their albums but don’t hold back on the production values. That fine line between simple quality record and low-budget knowledge isn’t crossed here as the band display a mastery of the fundamentals. Their style isn’t showy, it’s classic, relying on minimal arrangements from guitars (just two guitar and a bass) and a simple drum accompaniment topped of by quintessentially rocky vocals from the lead singer.

‘Don’t Plan On’ utilises great fine tuning but no enhancements or synthesis - just completely stripped down hard rock. The only true improvements are the various musical influences – largely including elements of blues-rock - thrown in there which elevate the emotionality of their filthy grunge foundation.

Sexy is the order of the day. There is always something intrinsically sexy and ballsy about any rock subgenre but more so when you’re dealing with hard-rock and blues. The songs on this album have that panache about them, incorporating riding winding riffs to support their often racy lyrical material. And the tempo of everything is not fast, not slow, just at the perfect speed that you can register all the elements properly. At the very least, this makes it a reviewer’s delight.

A band like The White Stripes would be happy to listen to an album like ‘Don’t Plan On’ simply because it sounds a lot like the material they would have delivered. In fact, they’re almost identical, only for the fact that they have double the amount of members. Because of this, you know pretty much what you’re getting from the quartet but, at the same time, you feel like you’ve heard a lot of this stuff before.