Mark Duda 2017
Month Of Sundays
A handful of magic dust to celebrate off-duty pastime for a Big Apple denizen who likes his night on the town.
Mark Duda’s most known for fronting THE HANDFUL and dabbling with a few other hard rock outfits, but this EP, his first solo outing, takes the veteran into a slightly different direction. From the “No, no, no, no” of the skin-catching title track onwards, there’s no turning back until the arresting sounds of “Subway Song” die down to leave the smell of the singer’s habitat – the unmistakable flavor of New York. It oozes out of every twangy note on this six-piece record where glitter and dirt rock and roll hand in hand, the DOLLS way.
Not for nothing his accompanists’ common denominator would be Joan Jett, although “Murder On Delancey” features another set of NYC mainstays – Cheetah Chrome on guitar and Bobby Rondinelli on drums, ripping through the relaxed, if edgy and jagged, glam stomper that will lodge itself in the listener’s frontal lobe, while Duda’s assertive voice leads the ensemble to the call-and-response chorus. “I’ll be right there,” sings Mark, and his larger-than-life presence is what makes this album so alluring, with the sax-smeared rhythm-and-blues “Standoff Love” tapping into the tinseltown’s music hall tradition, whereas “Worse For Wear” is a vehicle for the vocalist to bare his romantic underbelly and go all misty-eyed to roar about the place he used to roam and love.
That’s where the hefty, yet playful, riffs bring “Connection” to the here and now to kick groove and sleaze up to the skies. You can feel this connection, but of course, it’s best to take as many days-off as possible to explore the link in full.
****1/4
