The Ruby Tuesdays: What Rock Wants To Be

“Heavy, thick, and shiny, it’ll ooze through your speakers and into that part of your brain that makes you want to fuck shit up.”

John, IAMUR

How good is music? You know, that thing that makes us capable of travelling through time. To the first time you lay with them in bed, or those first steps you took, alone, when you finally found a way to leave it? Insert your own musical memories here, but then get ready to make some new ones to Blackburn rock quartet The Ruby Tuesdays’ new flat stick rock screamer, She’s Got You: a track a with nostalgia weaved into its fabric.

This isn’t to say it’s unoriginal or overly referential. It’s not. Released on the Golden Robot Records imprint, it sounds shiny and new, but not the mass-produced IKEA kind. It’s the bloke over the back fence who makes the best coffee tables you’ve ever seen out recycled timber kind. Where its lineage brings with it its own memories that you just feel when you lean back and put your feet up.

Now, I’m well aware putting a song in the genre of “rock” is about as vague as a key you find on the floor of a bar. But sometimes, it just fits, and the key to She’s Got You, is its simplicity. You won’t find unnecessary drum fills, or guitarists fighting for a spotlight, or an overcompensating bass player, or even a singer asserting their dominance. What you will find though, is a group of musicians doing exactly what is needed to serve the song and the emotion it’s trying to communicate. Nothing more, nothing less. This ethos, to me, is the perfect distillation of rock. A balance of sonic flavours that is never sweet, but sure as hell tasty.

One of the greatest pleasures as a music listener is when fearless song writing meets with its perfect production match, and The Ruby Tuesdays and David Radahd-Jones (Death Blooms, Jordan Allen, Boston Manor) are certainly one of these. Channelling early 90’s Butch Vig, Radahd-Jones finds space for every instrument while simultaneously creating an amorphous sound that feels like it’s being sung by a single monster. Heavy, thick, and shiny, it’ll ooze through your speakers and into that part of your brain that makes you want to fuck shit up.

It’s this, this balance, that makes this track somewhat difficult to review. I could tell you about the power of the vocals, the harmonic tension of the bass and guitars, or the jungle beat drums, but to do so would be a disservice to what The Ruby Tuesdays have created here. She’s Got You, is a song greater than the sum of its parts which carries with it, and does a great service to, the history of rock’n’roll. Go listen, and when you do, look down and give a little thanks to the Devil for creating it.

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