Pat Todd & the Rankoutsiders – Keepin’ Chaos at Bay LP Hound Gawd! Records (Germany)

For decades, Pat Todd has trolled the dark corners and back shelves of the thrift store of Americana and honed an extraordinarily sound. The new album distills everything he’s learned in his career-long, of all things rock and roll into a genre-scoffing dose of snarling ’70s punk rock, country, blues, roots rock full of hooks delivered with a brain and a heart. For decades, Pat Todd has trolled the dark corners and back shelves of the thrift store of Americana and honed an extraordinarily sound. The new album distills everything he’s learned in his career-long, of all things rock and roll into a genre-scoffing dose of snarling ’70s punk rock, country, blues, roots rock full of hooks delivered with a brain and a heart. While these fundamentals have always been behind the Rankoutsiders’ anthemic songs, they come to full fruition on Keepin’ Chaos at Bay in one of the hardest rocking and most soulful albums of Todd’s career and nobody, but nobody, plays it like Pat Todd. “Pat Todd is the most sincere Rock’n’Roll singer/songwriter on the planet. He makes the rest of us look like a bunch of fakers. ” is how Blaine Cartwright of Nashville Pussy describes Pat Todd. The lyrics of the 14-track album bristles with a sense of chaos, dedication, lies & love and mystery. Also a Rankoutsiders constant are the premier-league tunes: songs are filled to bursting point with grandstanding melodies, and subtle little hooks. New Originals like “Why I Sing”, “The Company You Keep” or “Victim Of Dedication” reminds of his previous red hot outlaw rock band The Lazy Cowgirls while the country-folk punker “Poison Your Water” infiltrate your blood. “That Little Bit Of Nothin'” takes the listener through the ups and downs and is full of heartbreak and desire. The cover version of “Tower of Song” by Leonard Cohen shows how well the band can rearrange this song for themselves and turns it as if it were their own. Keepin’ Chaos at Bay was recorded last year at Steady Studios Burbank, California by Gavin Ross and was produced and arranged by the Rankoutsiders. Pat Todd is joined again by guitarist and founding member, Nick Alexander; long-time guitarist and vocalist Kevin Keller, who also takes over the lead vocals on “You’re Gonna Loose It All”; Steven Vigh on bass and Walter Phelan on drums, the rhythm section, who are pushing the songs to the next level. KEY SELLING POINTS: – Seventh album from Los Angeles Rock’n’Roll legends- Features members of Lazy Cowgirls and L. A. Guns.