C.D. On Songs, Munk Duane Band, No July
Today is the big day for the Munk Duane Band. I know they are playing at the Hard Rock Cafe on Thursday night, but without any music, well I don’t know what they’d do there. Lucky for everyone, they have released a new record today. So you have a chance to become acquainted with the material, see? So you make your acquaintance starting right now, and you’ll be good and ready for the big show on Thursday night. Everybody wins!
This song actually displays a pleasing melange of flavors from the get-go; presenting with the western flair of a big old hollowbody guitar (I bet it has F holes. Who you calling F-Hole, F-Hole?), the upwardly mobile beat of modern pop, and the pleasing shifts in speed and power that keep things interesting. It is these changes that make this song move, providing plenty of hills and valleys for the train that is “No July” to pass through. This makes for a nice landscape for everyone in the train, those passengers being this song’s listeners. Meaning us.
The song’s sense of dynamics sits on top of a sturdy framework – “No July” uses a fairly sweet and somewhat underused chord progression for the majority of the track. The “I – IV Minor” motif works its way through the track, painting a picture of a band that is able to utilize various tensions to bring a song around. The key interval here is the minor-ness of the IV chord (which is a augmented fifth for those of you keeping score who still know what I am talking about). All melodies and hooks revolve around this interval, and “No July” works it to near-perfection.
“No July” gets another sense of power from the gutsy vocals. No, we don’t mean “gutsy” as in “tries for it but doesn’t hit it and we don’t want to say anything mean,” we simply mean that these vocals have a sense of gravity and power to them that gives them a serious oomph. The vocals hit hard, especially in the chorus; holding onto notes long and strong. The stalwart vocal presence is perhaps the strongest thing in the track. The guitar sort of stands to the side and does one of those “Check this guy out!” hand gestures like they used to do in professional wrestling, hitting the side of the boat with waves of chords that don’t intend to knock it over, just simply to take part in the voyage.