Track Dogs - Blind Summits & Hidden Dips (2023) Hi-Res

The boundaries of Track Dogs’ music have never been easy to define. But, when the members come from Ireland (two), England (one) and America (one) yet have lived and made their music in Spain for pushing 20 years, you could hardly expect otherwise. The good news from this latest release, Blind Summits & Hidden Dips, is that their musical smörgåsbord is as varied as ever, arguably even more so, while the bad news is… Well, there is no bad news.

Twenty seconds into the opening track, all the essential elements of Track Dogs’ sound are there. The honour of striking the first note goes to Howard Brown’s trumpet, closely followed by a couple of notes on acoustic guitar from Garrett Wall and bass from Dave Mooney. By the ten-second mark, Robbie K Jones joins in, fingers tapping out a rumba-ish rhythm, just using the cajon’s sparkling snare at this stage, and a further ten seconds later, Garrett’s voice is added. The lyrics to The Way of Things turn out to be somewhat at odds with the jovial, upbeat arrangement, neatly summed up in the refrain “there are worse things in this world, and you’re just finding out” and concluding with a list, in Spanish, of what life can be. The lengthy list includes short, bitter, killing, and surprising but ends with the possibly more encouraging: life is waiting. I see a connection to the album’s title; perhaps life is full of blind summits and hidden dips.

The follow-on song, Cover Your Tracks, has lyrics that dip into life’s darker side. One couplet of the refrain, “It pains me to see you this way, broke from the inside, fragile as clay”, sets the tone, but that’s immediately countered by the next, “If you ever need to go back, I’ll take you home, help you cover your tracks”. So, the world can be a worryingly scary place, but help is at hand from true friends. This song, again, is paired with an instrumental arrangement that belies the tenor of its lyrics. It frequently uses the sweetness of all four voices in harmony, and it’s refreshing to hear Dave’s bass providing the fill between vocal lines. A further sound could easily be mistaken for something electronic, but that isn’t the Track Dogs’ way. In reality, it’s Robbie on his 1950s-era vibraphone. They’ve used it sparingly on previous recordings, but it plays a more significant part on this album. With these first two songs, Track Dogs are certainly hitting one of their declared aims, handling dark themes with uplifting music and irresistible rhythms.

The third track changes the mood entirely; Be Your Silver Bullet is an out-and-out rocking blues, with Robbie’s gruff vocal giving it a good measure of authenticity. Track Dogs always assign writing credit to the band rather than individuals, but there’s no hiding that Robbie is the dominant influence on this one. Silver Bullet sees the first of the album’s guest appearances, revered saxophonist and former Blues Brother Lou Marini. He blows a suitably eye-popping solo, but even more memorable is his teamwork with Howard to give Track Dogs a horn section that, together with a pulsing bass line from Dave, drives Silver Bullet along and makes it into the track I’ve been revisiting whenever in need of a pick me up.

Robbie is still to the fore on the next track, handling the vocal lead while his banjo is the most prominent instrument. Water the Lawn ups the pace several notches, a helter-skelter of a song in typical banjo-driven Bluegrass style. Peace Inside then sees the lead vocal switch back to Garrett, heralding a marked reduction in tempo, a new mix of instruments and lyrics in praise of inner calm. The most significant change to the instrumental lineup is the addition of strings; as with their previous studio album, Where to Now?, the violin and cello are arranged and played by Stockport-based Chris Demetriou and Adrianne Wininsky. At the start of the track, Garrett sneaks in a bit of ukelele before the other Track Dogs and guests join in with the full arrangement and Garrett, wisely, chooses not to compete. He gets his reward on the very next track, Play Nice, accompanying the first verse by strumming the uke without any competition. When the other Track Dogs add to the arrangement, Robbie introduces the vibraphone once more.

The first song not written by the band comes next, Lester Flatt’s Sleep With One Eye Open and Robbie’s back in the driving seat with his Americana voice and banjo. He hands over cajon duties to Howard, and then it really only needs Dave’s bass for the instrumental arrangement to be complete. Vocally, the repetition of phrases in the chorus is ideally suited to Track Dogs’ style, with Robbie solo and then the other three voices taking on the repeat.

There’s just one more song entirely written by the band, Strange Days, and lyrically, it strays back into the more serious territory explored by the album’s opening songs. Musically, though, it is driven by the sunshiny, Latin rhythms that the band has made their trademark. Having just listened to it again, I’ve been struck by the thought that, of all the songs on Blind Summits, this one seems most reminiscent of music from their previous albums. That’s not something that could be said of the final two tracks. The first is a cover of the Stevie Nicks song, Rhiannon. Garrett starts off the vocal, but it’s a song that really benefits from having a woman’s voice, and the Madrid musical melting pot came up with the perfect one, Lu Garnet. After Garrett’s opening lines, they share the vocals, some phrases solo, some as a duet, and the effect is mesmerising. Alongside the voices, something equally arresting goes on. It would be safe to bet that whatever arrangement Track Dogs devised, it wouldn’t include a version of Lindsey Buckingham’s lengthy guitar solo. Instead, it starts with an intro of strummed uke and bass guitar and gives the vibraphone its most prominent rôle, with trumpet eventually joining to complete the full melody line. This combination continues after the voices have come in, with the trumpet set back in the mix but coming to the fore again between lines and for a middle break. Unsurprisingly, this all gives the song a radically different feel compared to Fleetwood Mac, but make no mistake, this is a version that can stand alongside the original and hold its head high.

The final track is also something of a surprise. Track Dogs met up with Les Barker at the Ibiza Costa Festival in 2022, and Robbie, in particular, was thoroughly captivated by Les’s sometimes serious, always hilariously presented poems. Robbie put a tune to one of the shorter poems, Disaster at Sea, and, following Les’s death in January, thought it a fitting tribute to include it on the album. Robbie handles the words, Dave picks a simple tune on mandolin, and Robbie persuades the album’s final guest, Alice Jones, to add a suitably funereal harmonium part.

For Track Dogs, the period since the end of lockdown must seem like a blur of festivals, tours and recordings. These years look to have been the most productive of the seventeen the band has been together, with three albums, one of them the live double album that resulted from their collaboration with Show of Hands. The cheering news is that this burst of creativity has yielded even higher levels of quality and originality in the music. There’s also a freshness and vigour about these songs that suggests the four of them are enjoying their music-making more and more as time goes on. A recurring feature of Track Dog’s music is that it sounds joyous. Still, the lyrics and music of Blind Summits and Hidden Dips also reveal a depth and complexity on repeat listens. Sometimes what is revealed can be deadly serious, and sometimes it shows they’re a band with a finely tuned sense of humour; two Track Dogs for the price of one, I’ll settle for that.