Taylor Hawkins & the Coattail Riders – Red Light Fever (RCA/Sony)

Taylor Hawkins is the drummer from the Foo Fighters and the Coattail Riders is a side project that actually has a history that goes back to 2006 when they released a self titled debut album. I never heard that album, but I doubt it could be any more entertaining that this throwback collection.

Let’s face it – this is one of the most deliciously retro albums I’ve heard in years. The influences…no the “inspirations” … are pure classic rock gold. The greats are all there in the record collections that inform this album – Slade, Thin Lizzy, Cheap Trick, Alice Cooper, Bad Company and T Rex just to name a few.

There’s double tracked guitar solos, stomping rhythm tracks, synthesised washes of strings, echo and reverb by the boatload handclaps and even a couple of killer ballads. It’s just great fun and whether the collective tongues are in the collective cheeks or not, it hardly even matters.

Hawkins sings really well, sounding very English at times, even reminding me of Ian Hunter on a few songs. He and the band (Chris Chaney, Gannin Arnold, Nate Wood and Drew Hester) deliver these songs with an almost wide –eyed innocence that indicates they either a) don’t get or b) completely get just how referential and reverential this album is. As a listener it just doesn’t matter. Just enjoy the ride. Queen members Brian May and Roger Taylor wander in and play on a couple of songs and The Cars Elliot Easton even makes an appearance.

The album art also gets in on the act by graphically adding the ring on the cardboard sleeve that a vinyl record used to make.

Red Light Fever takes me back to a time when rock n’ roll was new, different and a great source of escapism. This is an album that says (to a 40 something year old) summer holidays, my imaginary big brothers panel van, Big M girls (in my dreams), Chiko Rolls, EON-FM and sneaking in to see The Angels and Divinyls playing at the Sandy Commodore.

Good times.