London four-piece DeepSeaGreen have a pretty strong foothold in laid back grooves and fuzzy tones. On “Coagula,” one of the highlight cuts from their 2011 EP and latest release, Valsorda, they balance them both with a natural, bluesy-kind of feel, nestling into a catchy chorus that seems to put them in line with upstart acts like The Dirty Streets or maybe even a more grounded The Flying Eyes — post-Graveyard semi-retro heavy rock and roll — but then the swaggering Fu Manchu-style fuzz takes hold on “Over Song,” and the roots have shifted. Blues is still there, but the rock is heavier, however much the groove remains what rock critics mistakenly call “danceable.”

Founded by the brotherly duo of guitarist Jon and drummer Daniel Jefford and also featuring guitarist/vocalist Trent Halliday and bassist Marco Menestrina, I find it’s the aspects of DeepSeaGreen‘s sound that I can classify the least that I most enjoy. It would be easy to trace the bouncing blues of “Put Me Out” to Clutch, but then how does one account for the garage rock stomp of EP opener “Soul, Stray Cats and the Cosmos?” Valsorda follows a 2010 acoustic EP and its smooth production is a result of working with Fabio de Pretis at Blue Noise Studios in Rome. That’s a pretty far cry from London’s West End, though I can’t argue with the results. I’d go to Rome just to capture Menestrina‘s bass tone in “Nowhere to Hide,” though I guess that’s not saying much, because I’d go to Rome anyway if I could afford it.

The EP rounds out with “Small Stones,” which follows much the same course as “Coagula” or “Put Me Out,” but if DeepSeaGreen‘s modus is going to be to break out a warm-sounding blues jam every couple of tracks, that’ll work. They’re headed to Foel Studios in Wales to record a follow-up to Valsorda sometime before the end of September (time’s running out), and they toured Europe this past summer, playing in Italy, Austria, Germany, France and of course the UK.

Pretty cool stuff that just goes to show how much is happening in Britain right now. You can get more info at DeepSeaGreen‘s website, or their Thee Facebooks. Here’s the stream of Valsorda, which I grabbed from their Bandcamp:

Tags: DeepSeaGreen, London, UK, Unsigned bands

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 26th, 2012 at 8:24 pm and is filed under On the Radar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.