RADAR
"Back to Broke"
www.RadarRocks.com
CD Baby
CD review by Roger Zee (01/17/19)
Strangly enough, Northern aggression resurrects Southern Rock on RADAR's debut album, "Back to Broke."
Picture Lynyrd Skynyrd jacked up on Molly Hatchet! It all makes sense. Leader Ronnie Pauls sang and played guitar in the Westchester-based Southern Rock cover band Sundown for 40 years. It's about time he delivered his originals to the world! Mike, "Tiny" Dykes owned the lead guitar seat in the infamous Southern Cross cover band. Bassist/vocalist Ric Lubell performs all over Westchester with such groups as Terrapin, Not Dead Yet, Brothers of the Road, and Andrea and the Armenian Rug Riders, For years, drummer Dan 'Chopper' Carillo hosted numerous jams in White Plains, NY. To make this CD, producer/songwriter Ronnie Pauls copped a "Boston" and recorded it all in his basement!
The album opens with "Back to Broke," hard-chugging Rock that sets the tone and story line for the rest of the record. "Ain't got a dime, ain't got a nickel, ain't got nothing but shame. Used to ride in a limousine but I done lost my game. I had it once, I had it all, but that was long ago. The wine and the women they all picked up to to go."
Sadly, things only get worse. On the uptempo, Zeppelinesque riff-rocker, "Ain't No Fool," Pauls angrily sings, "Girl, why you do those things you do. Girl, why you always act so cruel. Say you love me, that's not true. Stop your lying because I ain't no fool." Pauls gets introspective on RADAR's big, Freebird-like anthem, and laments about the "Man I'll Never Be." "Tried to be a better man but it got the best of me. Tried so hard to understand why love's a mystery. What can I do to show you what you mean to me?" The tempo picks up mid-section as the guitars scream individual solos, join together in glorious harmony, split apart, and come together as they climax.
The decline of our hero continues on the mid-tempo, snarling, gruff "Too Blue to Have the Blues."People making fun of me, all I get is abuse. I don't know why I try, it's just no use." On the butt-kicking "Those Kind of Nights," depression leads to anger, drinking, fighting, and ultimately jail. I can just see the mosh pit going wild on this one! The instrumental "Stampede" spotlights the guitars of Pauls and Dykes, together in harmony and outrageously alone. The album closes on a surprising up note with the forbidding roar of a "V8 Ford." "Rolling down the highway. The wind is in my hair. The radio is blasting and I don't have a care."
RADAR sounds amazingly tight for such a young band. The grooves run deep and intense. Dan Chopper Carillo's primal-scream beat launches the dueling guitars of Pauls and Dykes high into the stratosphere. The pulsing bass and sweet background vocals of Ric Lubell glues the group together. If you dig Southern Rock pumped to the max, amped to "11", you're gonna love RADAR!
©2018 Roger Zee