 Every once-in-a-while, you can find a band that wants to scream to the world that Rock is not dead. One such band that is currently making no-holds-barred rock is The Dallas Motorcade.
The Dallas Motorcade is a quintet of musicians from the Tri-Cities area of Illinois. The band consists of lead vocalist Timmy Olson, lead guitarist Mike Scarlata, guitarist Mat Warrenfeltz, bassist Will Ash and drummer Kyle Richards. Together, these five musicians have created a style of Rock that incorporates many different genres of the musical category. The resulting style of music is a welcome change of pace from the current mainstream style that is more “Pop” than Rock. Suffer In Silence is the newly-released album from The Dallas Motorcade. The 13 tracks contained within the release feature such topics as violence, death and living with the choices you make. While the majority of Suffer In Silence is some of the strongest rock music produced today, the album’s leadoff track of “Prelude To Damnation” is completely different than the rest of the release. The track features a piano-and-rock-based melody that is low-key compared to the rest of the release. However, as the title suggests, the song works well as a prelude to the musical violence that follows it. Once the final notes of the first track end, the album really picks up steam. The band seems to let go of all of their pent up anger by releasing it through the energy of the music and the lyrics to the songs. The majority of the lyrics can be separated into two categories: anger and violence. Songs like “Judgement” and “Because of You” deal with not liking the decisions made by other people, while “Slug” and When I Bleed” are about violent acts. |
Unlike some bands that like to lighten the mood of heavy music like this by including one or two “love songs” on the album, The Dallas Motorcade did the intelligent thing and stayed away from anything “heart-felt”. There are three songs on the release, however, that can be referred to as “anti-love songs”. “This is Want Happens,” “A Night in the Life,” and “Shanna” all have to do with relationships that have gone wrong, or that are meaningless one-time situations. The band’s choice to stay away from songs that might have brought the energy level of the album down makes Suffer In Silence from The Dallas Motorcade that much stronger a release.
The closing track is one of the strongest, and by far, one of the most original songs on the release. It is on “Journey to Valhalla” that the band seems to take just a page out of the history of Led Zeppelin by a song in the tradition of Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song”. With the pain and suffering that is conveyed in their music, it seems very fitting that the band chose to end their album with a song written about soldiers attaining unending glory by entering into Valhalla as heroes. “Journey to Valhalla” also happens to be the longest track on the release, as it exceeds eight minutes.
If mainstream rock is too flat and lifeless for your liking, Suffer In Silence by The Dallas Motorcade may just be the next release that ends up in your music collection.
Review by Matheson Kamin
