On their sizzling new single "Devil Calls My Name," The Sunset Donkeys give us a screeching kick in the bullets that is half blues, half grit, and all rock 'n' roll soul so searing. Released through Cleopatra Records, this track is a molten drop straight through sin, survival, and darker aspects of what it means to be human, and it feels like a blow to the chest. Featuring production and mixing by Hal Lindes of Dire Straits and vocals cut by James Mottershead, this single is not just music but mood, menace, and momentum combined.
Lindes and Chris Constantinou's snarling guitar slices like rusted steel, dirty, chewed up, and spat in your face, and Glen produces a vocal full of British soul and battered by the pain of the underdog. Lynch's voice treads a fine line between agony and ecstasy, harking back to the days of Roger Daltrey and Steve Marriott without ever coming across as a pastiche. Instead, his very own, full of hoary wisdom and a swagger, challenges you to look away. The narrative includes shadows and truth, addiction, abandonment, and urban rot. But there's beauty in the bleak, particularly in the song's catchy, catchy chorus, where melody bursts through broken clouds like sunlight snapping across a shattered skyline.
Behind the music lurks a story just as romantic, which was entirely coincidental after Lynch and Constantinou collided in a pub and hatched a songwriting partnership based on gut instinct and mutual aims. Constantinou has served in Adam Ant, Lou Reed, Sinead O'Connor, and a host of alt-punk jaunts, adding decades of rebellion. With Lindes, they build a sound that is at once classic and cutting-edge. "Devil Calls My Name" is a statement. It's not only a story but telling but pulling you into it. Swagger, yes, but also scars. And it's in that tension between soul and sin, melody and menace, that The Sunset Donkeys' recent release isn't just memorable but magnetic.
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