Posted on: August 5, 2011 Posted by: John B. Moore Comments: 0

Washington state’s The Riffbrokers have managed to find a way to sound completely timeless. They play “rock” without any unnecessary prefix needed to describe their sound and as a result they could have recorded their latest (Every Pilot’s Blinded By the Sun) in the studio right next to Tom Petty when he was working on Damn the Torpedoes in ’79 or they could have just as easily been playing with Buffalo Tom in the mid 90’s.

Their fifth and latest record, Every Pilot’s Blinded By the Light, fits into the same category. Some strong tracks (like the album opener “Better Angels”) and some meh tracks (“Down From the Down”) balance the effort, but keep it from being a must buy… or even a must burn for that matter. The band plays solid rock music, which is not an easy thing to do if you spend more than 10 minutes trying to find a great song on the radio recorded in the past few years, it’s just than most of the bands they are taking their cues from (Petty, R.E.M., Elvis Costello) do it a whole lot better.

A solid effort from these Seattle natives, but in the end, it ambition isn’t always enough.

Top track: “Better Angels”

The Riffbrokers – Every Pilot’s Blinded By the Sun/11 tracks/2011/Unsmashable

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