Some Kind of Sign is
the Domino Kings' fourth full-length and the band's first since 2002's Back of Your Mind. Once more the Missouri rockers team with producer
Lou Whitney, and offer a solid 11-track collection of roots rock, rockabilly, and swinging honky tonk country. The title track, which opens the set, draws deep from the well of
Buddy Holly's songwriting with its hyperkinetically strummed guitars, tight vocal harmonies, and thundering chorus. "Walk Away if You Want To" is a barroom country strutter. If
Stonewall Jackson had been a young man raised on
Creedence Clearwater Revival and
Dwight Yoakam, he might have cut this. The soulful "Pain in My Past" and "It's All Over But the Crying" are more earthy, tougher takes on the slippery Tex-Mex-inspired rock that
the Mavericks tried to do. "Dark Side of the Moon" has nothing whatsoever to do with
Pink Floyd. It's a sparkling, guitar-ringing, country-rock ballad with a killer guitar break. The amped-up Bakersfield-inspired rockabilly of "You Tear Me Up" is one of the set's true highlights. The Domino Kings may play the music of the American roots canon, but they write their own tunes and they do it their way.
Some Kind of Sign is solid, rough, ready, and very ably crafted. ~ Thom Jurek