THE
SIGHTS – The Sights (In-Fidelity)
There
are those around town who would anoint three kids named Eddie Baranek, Bobby
Emmett, and Mike Trombley as Detroit’s heir apparents
to rooster-haired rockers like Rod Stewart, Ron Wood, Keith Richards, Steve
Marriott, Paul 
Westerberg, and Tommy Stinson. Half-inching ideas from spiritual
hotpoints like the Faces (Small and otherwise), the Stones, and The Replacements
apparently make some people a little starry eyed, melancholy, or worse.
Baranek formed The Sights in the late 90’s before the ink was dry on his middle school diploma, betraying his years with a desert island disc list overflowing with Motown and 60’s garage titles. The first Sights album, “Are You Green?,” was released in 1999 when Baranek was just 18, followed in 2002 by “Got What We Want” and a shitload of casually tossed-off comparisons to Supergrass.
With “The Sights” (the album), The Sights (the band) now appear poised for a Murder City coup d’etat but if you’re looking for a blast of traditional Detroit muscle, look away now.
“The Sights” is
exactly what rock ‘n’ roll
should sound like: a bunch of musos playing a bunch of great songs punctuated
with a bunch of stolen
riffs and vocal styles that remind you of a bunch of other records which satisfy
the bloodstream like fast food grease.
You’ll
recognize the wistful, melancholic mark of the late Ronnie Lane channeled
through Emmett’s keyboards on “Scratch My Name In Sin” and “Baby’s
Knocking Me Down,” the rollicking bounce of early
brothers Davies in the arrangements of “Backseat” and “Suited
Fine,” and
the
window-rattling thunder of Humble Pie-era Marriott in “Last Chance.”
One light-bulb moment later, as these knockabout guys tromp their way through the Slade-like “Just Got Robbed,” an epiphany; The Sights are far from slavish copyists as either songwriters or players, boy-child savants who barely break a sweat, breathing a collective “Yeah, so what?” as they elevate themselves to the closest thing Detroit’s had to world beaters since Mike Latulippe and John Szymanski decided to cut their losses with The Paybacks and Jack and Meg White’s publicist decided it was best to come clean about their less-than-holy matrimony. Feh…
“The Sights” is far and away Jim Diamond’s finest hour twiddling the knobs, stuffed full of fireworks and giddy excitement, extremes between the light and dark, the overblown and sublime, pulsing with economy and straight forward drive, unadorned by the baggage that accompanies overwrought wet dreams of garage rock revivals, guitar revolutions, and hearts clogged with napalm.
And they have the balls to tack on a hidden track – one of my pet peeves – a cover of Faces warhorse “Stay With Me” which nearly topples the original in terms of sloppy, overlubricated, machismo.
We’re
clearly not worthy. - Clark Paull
3/4