US band SIDEWALK SOCIETY first appeared with a self-titled album back in 2008, which was followed by a second studio production in 2012. They have also been contributors to several projects instigated by UK label Fruits de Mer Records, and have released a couple of cover track EPs on that label too. The 7 inch EP “Bowie/The Action” is the most recent of the latter, and was released in the summer of 2016.
This is a four track EP evenly shared between tracks from David Bowie and The Action respectively, and the promo version of the EP kicks off with the somewhat obscure Bowie tune Can’t Help Me Thinking About Me, which at least in this take sounds like a song that could have been pulled from a mid to late 60’s album. Tight, uplifting and with a distinctly English 60’s pop/rock sound, and rather unlike the greater majority of Bowie songs I’ve come across at, at least in this version. Second track out, Look at the View, is a calmer and even more 60’s sounding affair with a tight pop song arrangement that grows some organ details prior to concluding on a gentle psychedelic note.
Next up is Bowie’s 1967 single Let Me Sleep Beside You, which gains an additional melancholic dimension in this version, much due to the rather different voice of the vocalist. The song is otherwise one that will be easily recognized by the Bowie fans that have explored the older parts of his back catalog in general and are familiar with this song in particular. A song by The Action, Strange Roads, then concludes this EP on a gentler and rather more insistent psychedelic note, the ongoing psychedelic dripping guitar solo motif in the chorus on this cut one of those you’ll have a love or hate relation to, but undeniably one firmly founded in the 1960’s in terms of sound and style.
All in all this EP comes across as a solid run through 60’s and 60’s era inspired music, performed in the spirit of that decade and very much in the spirit of the original songs as well from what I can tell. The performances may be a bit tighter and the arrangements perhaps a bit firmer, but first and foremost a production that should appeal most profoundly to those with a solid passion for 1960’s pop and rock.
My rating: 75/100
