The Trend live in an at-capacity theater in my head. I've been watching grainy videos of rock stars from the early '80s all evening because of them; absorbing reel after reel of fecund gyrations in tight, acid-wash jeans, accompanied by the posses of impossibly confident dudes mugging for screaming crowds under blazing stage lights that rain through their curly locks like the blessings of angels; illuminations refracting and flowering around their heads in a halo of perspiration and sexual electricity. The Trend isn't Enuff Z'Nuff, but they're chasing a similar muse, grasping at her golden tassels as she sparrow-dives down the slants of Mount Helikon. As I said, the band is inhabiting a specific space in my mind at the moment. A space that needs occupying- a niche that the overwhelming air displacement generated by their guitars is more than capable of satisfactorily filling- but not by volume alone do they accomplish this feat- they've character to spare as well. Sgt. Pepper II is The Trend's debut and a cheeky tip of the hat that reveals their down-range target. Their music is packed to bursting with the unapologetic ambition to enter the canon of American roots rock. They're sloshed on the swagger of the Guess Who and now have the strong-arming strength of a Billy Squier-sized guitar section and could arm-wrestle a guerilla if they felt inclined, but instead, they're chopping hooks to order, all of them worthy of comparison with prime slices dished up by the Candy Butchers. The world at present seems fairly resistant to this style of rock, and the only successful living example of a group in this lane that someone under 40 might recognize is Weezer (a band that The Trend, certainly resembles at times). But if any catalog of songs is primed to push through the inertia and indifference of the wider American public to the bounty of its own rock 'n roll heritage, it's Sgt. Pepper II. The superfluously titled album is the conduit for such essential tracks as the crooner-cribbing, heart-thumping whirl and tear-jerking centripetal haul of "Dancing Shoes," the passionate prickle of "Coming Home" whose heart-break fueled choruses seeth like a blast furnace, the anguished pursing gait and mod-maudlin ramble of "I Don't Know Why," and last but not least, the beachy, sand-peeling cruise and salt-saturated snap of "Tell That Girl." The Trend are making faded fads feel full and flush again, polishing off decades of dust so that rock's heart of gold can shine with the brilliance of a beacon on a distant shore, guiding the hearty and the faithful back home.
Grown with the help of Good Soil Records and Yellow K.
