Only Thieves - Heartless Romantics

Only Thieves
Heart­less Roman­tics
Self-​Released; 2011

If I were pressed to out­line a sin­gu­lar fac­tor that cap­tured my atten­tion, I’d have to say that I think it’s the rugged, rous­ing atti­tude that pow­ers the whole of Heart­less Roman­tics, the debut full-​length from Only Thieves. I liked what I heard from these three Florida boys on their 2009 EP, Greet­ings From Levy Park, T.L.H., but I thought that the music existed a bit too “in-​between” gen­res for my tastes. With this record, those wor­ries are quickly and effi­ciently allayed, as I my ears enjoy ten songs of sturdy, rol­lick­ing bar rock with good punk-​ish flavor.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is the record that The Hold Steady should have released in 2010, instead of Heaven Is When­ever. The tunes are brash and bold with­out seem­ing slap­dash or arro­gant, and the vocals are urgent with­out feel­ing cheap or laden with ado­les­cent over­tones. The gui­tars have a proper chug to them, com­plete with nifty fills and riffs when­ever nec­es­sary (but never gra­tu­itously), and the rhythm sec­tion is suit­ably big in the mix, which gives a strong vin­tage rock feel to the project.

There isn’t any­thing fancy about stand­out tracks like “Dis­cov­er­ies,” “Reg­is­ter,” and “Unsat­is­fied,” but that’s the charm of indie-​fied garage rock of this nature. Ample amounts of Springsteen-​esque influ­ences can be iden­ti­fied, from the afore­men­tioned The Hold Steady to Gaslight Anthem and Lucero, but this trio dis­plays some sur­pris­ing teeth and a pen­chant for a good bal­lad (specif­i­cally “The Bal­lad Of The Alu­minum Girl”) per­mits them the chance to rise above the level of their unsigned con­tem­po­raries. The pac­ing of the album is such that it keeps your atten­tion, never gets stale, and sticks in your ears with­out ever com­ing across as faux-​epic or over-​the-​top.

The music of Only Thieves is appro­pri­ately gritty and ener­getic, and never insults your intel­li­gence by try­ing to be too ambi­tious or more than the sum of its parts. Heart­less Roman­tics strikes a good bal­ance between uptempo rock cuts and longer slow-​burners, and when “Bricks” and “What’s Wrong” bring the album to a rous­ing con­clu­sion, you are thank­ful that there are still bands out there more inter­ested in pro­vid­ing a good time for fans of rock ‘n roll than wor­ry­ing about enter­tain­ing their Twit­ter followers.