DIRTY HONEY’S NEW ALBUM ‘CAN’T FIND THE BRAKES’ SET FOR A NOVEMBER 3, 2023
After being on the road touring for two years across the UK and Europe, Dirty Honey is finally returning home for the first leg of their 2023-2024 world tour. They will be supporting their latest album, ‘Can’t Find The Brakes’ which is due to be released November 3, 2023. This album is titled appropriately, as it’s evident, this band isn’t about to let up any time soon and they are keeping their foot on the gas .
Lets get the share of this this album started.
The first track “Don’t Put Out The Fire” immediately highlights the maturing of Marc LaBelle’s tone and vocals. The recording has great layered vocals along with backing vocals making a dynamic vocal track. John Notto’s guitar riffs with Justin Smolian and Jaydon Bean banging out the rhythms just opens your ears to a new complex sound from the band.
Track number two, “Won’t Take Me Alive” just kicks you in the ass and makes it impossible not to move getting into the beat. An incredible groove anchored by the rhythm section as Notto goes off in a whirl with great guitar leads. No wonder this is the first single released for the album. The backing vocals and keyboards make this a outstanding song.
“Dirty Minds”, track number three off the album has great layered vocals, dirty guitar leads as the song builds in tempo. I recognize the old Dirty Honey sound somewhere in there, but the band is much deeper now.
The fourth song “Roam” starts with a clean guitar intro then adds heavy bass and drums, and then it fills out the track with a bit of keyboards. LaBelle’s vocals are strong and clean accompanied by a full sound of the band. The layering is great, especially with headphones. This might have my favorite guitar solo of the entire album.
Do you want some of the old Dirty Honey back? listen to track number five, “Get A Little High.” Great guitar leads and a strong baseline, it’s just in your face rock n roll! One of my favorite songs on the album.
This takes us to song number six, which is an acoustic ballad “Coming Home (Ballad Of The Shire),” and the second single released off the album. You can just picture Mark, John, and Justin sitting on the drum riser performing it live. What great album doesn’t have a great ballad on it? Time will be the judge how this song will be received, but I like this song a bit more every time I hear it as it grows on me.
‘Can’t Find The Brakes,’ the title track of the album is next and opens with a killer baseline highlighted by LaBelle’s vocals. Another rocking, foot taping, rock n roll tune you can’t help but love as this song deserves to be the title track.
“Satisfied” and “Ride On” are next on the album and the two songs are raw without a lot of extra production. In my opinion, Dirty Honey at its best as these tracks feel like a live recording.
“You Make It Right” is the second ballad on the album. Great vocals and you can really hear the keyboards on this country sounding recording.
Winding out the album is “Rebel Son”, a rocking bluesy stadium song that just jams and would be great at the start or the end of any concert.
It appears the last two years on the road has seasoned Dirty Honey into a mature rock n roll band. This album proves Dirty Honey, a great in your face rock band, now has many added dimensions. Producer Nick DiDia (Rage Against The Machine, Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots), has done a brilliant job on the album’s recording. There are so many layers, and the recording gets deeper and better every time through it.
‘Can’t Find The Brakes‘ is Dirty Honey’s coveted sophomore album. The rock industry’s history usually points to the band’s second album as the barometer for a band’s expected future. If this is the case, the future is very bright for Dirty Honey, and for the future of Rock n Roll, well it starts right here and now with ‘Can’t Find The Brakes.’
Rating:
9/10
‘CAN’T FIND THE BRAKES’
Track list:
1.) Don’t Put Out The Fire
2.) Won’t Take Me Alive
3.) Dirty Mind
4.) Roam
5.) Get A Little High
6.) Coming Home (Ballad Of The Shire)
7.) Can’t Find The Brakes
8.) Satisfied
9.) Ride On
10.) You Make It All Right
11.) Rebel Son
Photo credit: Katarina Benzova
Dirty Honey is:
Marc LaBelle – Vocals
John Notto – Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar
Justin Smolian – Bass, Acoustic Guitar
Jaydon Bean – Drums, Percussion
About Dirty Honey:
Some musicians take a while to build an audience and connect with fans. For the Los Angeles-based quartet Dirty Honey, success came right out of the gate…
In September 2019, Dirty Honey made history as the only unsigned artist in Billboard’s near four-decades to go all the way to #1 on the magazine’s Mainstream and Hard Rock Charts with its debut single, “When I’m Gone.” Since that weighty debut, Dirty Honey has opened for The Who, Guns N’ Roses, Slash with Alter Bridge, and The Black Crowes (when the band received glowing press reviews and a standing ovation at the majority of the tour’s concerts — unprecedented for a support act). Dirty Honey’s self-titled album – without the help of a record label – debuted at #2 on the Current Hard Rock Chart, Rolling Stone featured them as “An Artist You Need To Know,” they were tagged as the “do-not-miss-band” at more than a dozen major North American summer festivals, and played sold-out shows on their first two North American headline tours. In May, 2022 the band released its international EP/LP debut, and headed to the UK and Europe for their first tour there, playing headline shows, festival slots and support dates with Guns N’ Roses, KISS and Rival Sons. Both legs of the band’s 2023 UK/European headline tours sold out with most of the venues having to upscale due to ticket demand.
In April 2023, the band – Marc LaBelle/vocals, John Notto/guitar, Justin Smolian/bass, and newest member, Jaydon Bean/drums) – headed to Australia to record their new album, Can’t Find The Brakes, due out ton November 3. The album’s first single, “Won’t Take Me Alive” – released on July 7, 2023 – is a literal, take-no-prisoners-balls-out rocker. Dirty Honey will launch their 2023-24 North American world tour on October 18 rolling into headline shows in October/November/December.
Dirty Honey continues to take the world by storm.
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Photographer and Editor/Founder of AllMusicMagazine.com. My love of live music has taken me to incredible experiences with the top bands of all time in stadium shows to the smallest venues with equally inspiring musicians. Using the medium of photography and my publication, these memories will last forever.
