Review: Dan Reed Network – Fight Another Day

Between the late 80’s and early nineties the Dan Reed Network started drawing attention for their blend of rock and funk, a multi-racial band as were Sly and The Family Stone and Mothers Finest before them who ploughed a similar field of musical cross-fertilization. A cursory hearing of their past work finds popular entertainment acts Bon Jovi and Prince as influences; one duly notes tours supporting The Rolling Stones and that album releases went ever higher up the charts. Then, as things looked peachy, the Portland, Oregon club band who made good decided to split. The excesses of the rock and roll lifestyle and pressures of the recording industry had won out.

So sneak back a few years, lead singer Dan Reed himself is putting in acoustic performances around the UK and elsewhere but talk of a Network reformation is dashed until a 2012 New Year’s 25^th anniversary reunion back in Oregon. This lead to selected festival and tour dates and now a new album, Fight Another Day out on the Frontiers Music label.

Fans of 80s-90s AOR poodle rock may be disappointed as might big mother-funkers, but there’s a vibe and collective group sound at work that underpins what are often songs with a social consciousness at heart, gained with the maturity of middle-age. It’s also, and I’m sure everyone will read this wondering what drugs I’m on (too many, all prescription, dudes) when I say this sounds like the solo album Phil Collins could have made if he’d started recording after Genesis’s Lamb Lie Down On Broadway rather than And Then There Were Three. My reasons, firstly on this record Reed sounds like Collins without the high note nasal whine but with the soul edge of someone who understands the source of that music, secondly the use of synthesisers and keyboard prevalent through many of the songs, with most of the band listed as playing them. Strangely, while Reed,  guitarist Brion James, bass player Melvin Brannon II and drummer Dan Pred are back a younger looking fellow by the name of Rob Daiker is their new keyboard player.

Things start well with the heavy thudding funking rock of ‘Divided’ with a big singalong chorus and the line “We will never be divided” implying as subtext the band’s a happy gang again. What’s most affecting is the kookie synthesiser melodies throughout and how they whirl come the fade out.

Keyboards are again at the forefront for the 90s disco funk orchestrations of ‘The Brave’ with some added slap and pull on the bass during ‘Infected’ that seats us in a Stevie Wonder/Prince/Glenn Hughes/Phil Collins place with its heavier hooked chorus. Mid-paced then slowing down further with  a brief guitar solo ‘Champion’ features the lines “Live to fight another day” so the inspiration for the album title. More interesting to me is the instrumental ‘Ignition’ that starts off with slow tribal rhythms (this percussion may be programmed) while synthesisers sqwerk and parp over them, with melodies prevalent too – cool incidental film music to my mind.

‘Give It Love’ moves between driving AOR rock and a dance floor fun groove, while pulling in a guitar solo and the broken chorded ‘B There With U’ would again be apt or us in a  film, being that part  where the couple are getting on great before some great misunderstanding breaks them up. Bigger issues are at stake as religious tolerance is expressed in the stooping blues funk of ‘Save The World’ that’s a little like Men At Work in overall sound.

‘Eye Of The Storm’ is light busking rock with heartfelt soul asides and a keen guitar melody weaving through while ‘Reunite’  shifts between possessing a Beatles like quality and a New Romantic sound that wouldn’t be out of place on a Pet Shop Boys record. The feet shuffling slow dance of ‘Heaven’ is a ballad with an air of mystery and a guitar solo arching alongside while ‘Sharp Turn’ aptly evokes the tired  nighttime driver’s thoughts over its funk before it all coalesces with ‘Stand Tall’ and its undulating slow riff embellished by keyboards.

Dan Reed Network fans themselves will be the best judges of how this compares and has changed from their previous works, but as with many modern records some songs could do with trimming and it took several listens complete to get a handle on Fight Another Day. Outwardly it’s a collection about surviving, with ecological and social tolerance concerns imbued but it needs that repeated playing as background music for it to be digested. Musically where the synthesisers freak and at the other extreme where the soul sounds stir earnestly, that’s where it succeeds for me.