“Slide It In” by The Dead Daisies

The hard rock syndicate The Dead Daisies doesn’t play bubblegum pop-rock devoid of stylistic originality, and although their sound borrows a lot from the classic rock the players came to be defined for separately, it’s hardly the result of carefully planned recreation. Born of aesthetical ambitions that cross decades and decadence the same, The Dead Daisies defiantly rock us with a tizzy of new noise in their cover “Slide It In” this September, a scathing sonic attack as it stands in an allegedly post-old guard society.

Lyrically searing but centered on the visceral cut of its sonic presence, “Slide It In” seeks to inject melodicism with a much-needed dose of primal rock n’ roll rebellion, and it’s easily one of my favorite new cover cuts to debut this fall.

One of the most saccharine elements of the modern hard rock movement has been the feigned support for tradition that the classic rock community has been discussing for the better part of the last fifty years, but this single features no such fronting in place of smart lyricism. The poetic value of this track as a cover, and everything that The Dead Daisies has released to date, isn’t defined as much by the substance of what’s being said, but how the words relate to the backdrop being created through the instrumentation. This single is multilayered in this sense, cultivating angst on one side and ensuring catharsis on the other, the guiding light between being the players alone.

I love that “Slide It In” isn’t saturated with overindulgence on any front, particularly about how its narrative is produced. As far as the production quality is concerned, by staying out of the way of any grit and texture naturally created in the mix, we get more of a concert-like sound in this recording than we would the typical rock release hitting store shelves and streaming sites this autumn. The Dead Daisies aren’t interested in preserving their presence through plasticizing their sound, and to me, that’s one of the biggest reasons they need to be celebrated as a one-of-a-kind act amidst a sea of posers in 2023. After all, when mainstream critics are calling anything without a synthesizer rock, a product as epic as this is worthy of something even greater.

The Dead Daisies are dead-set on changing the narrative for the hard rock scene in this emerging decade, and judging from the blood and sweat they’ve put into “Slide It In,” they aren’t wasting any time getting right down to business this year. There hasn’t been much rock worth writing home about out of the underground or the mainstream the same in the past eight months, and considering the anti-insularities of this piece in comparison to what a lot of other bands have been recording recently, I don’t see many true-blue rockers resisting what The Dead Daisies are serving up here. “Slide It In” is uncompromising and fearless, much like the legendary and sophisticated artists responsible for its arrival in this incredible incarnation are.

Mindy McCall