THE PAYBACKS –
“HARDER AND HARDER”
No doubt about
it, life is hard.
Fortunately, some
things are better when they’re hard. For
Detroit rock ‘n’ roll outfit, The
Paybacks, it’s best when its “Harder and
Harder.”
It’s with that
philosophy that Detroit’s “defenders of
the rock,” return with "Harder and
Harder," their second album for
Get Hip Records. Brimming with the pummeling
riff rock, buoyant, revealing pop and three
chord punk pounders that defined the band on
its much-heralded Get Hip debut, “Knock
Loud,”
“Harder and Harder” is testament
that cutting your own path through the
mediocrity of fad, fashion, creeping
hipster-ism and music industry brainwashing
is its own reward.
Love for love’s sake,
sex for pleasure’s sake, self redemption
and the repudiation of those who hunger for
your failure – these are all themes, tales
and truths that find their way on to
“Harder and Harder.” Delivered with the
band’s trademark hell-bent optimism,
“Harder and Harder” also features guest
appearances by founding guitarist and
Paybacks patriarch, Marco Delicato (who
drops in for two tracks that he co-wrote:
“Superider” and “Can You Drive”) and
Detroit guitar legend and one of the fathers
of the “Sacred Steel” slide guitar
style, Calvin Cooke, who joins the band for
a blues-by-the-way-of-punk number called
“Jumpy.” Engineer and co-producer
extraordinaire John Smerek, of Detroit’s
famed White Room studios, ties the whole
thing together in one magnificent, loud,
unruly platter. It’s been a long wait, but
it can’t be contained any longer --
“Harder and Harder,” is fixin’ to bust
out.