I lost the needle on Mystic Highway EP by DownTown Mystic and immediately I am brought back to the time when I was driving along a backroad, the windows open, and I am speeding at some terribly forgotten backroad that is now there by feeling alone. Robert Allen does not just create songs he brings back something that is essential and drives it directly into the present.
Modern Ways song opens with a bang of a classic rock riffling on time-tested guitar sound, Steve Holley pounding on with percussion that is urgent, and Garry Tallent and Max Weinberg sliding into that inimitable driving beat. It is pure motor ecstasy, that which is the reason to smile and then your thought catches up on why you are smiling.
Then Lost and Found is lowered into a more gritty field, more edgy, more weathered, heartland rock through East Coast grit. Guitars are biting, harmonies rolling in like voices known to many and filling the vacated chairs, and you have the sense of Allen driving the curves of a story of digging yourself out of whatever hole has attempted to take you.
The song "Some Day" destroys me over and over again. It begins humbly, almost in the personal, and then grows into this great open-handed assurance that you will always be part of the future. When the entire band explodes into that last chorus unison it seems like it was the dawn after days of unending darkness, the sort of thing you would like to reside in forever.
Mystic Highway brings all the satisfaction and emotional completeness. Allen and his created legends do not just allude to the past, they bring it back to life and show that rock’n’roll is still as vital as ever. I have been listening to this EP nonstop over the past few days and my heart rate still rises when this first riff rips through the speakers. Certain records are a reminder of the reason why you were in love with this music in the first place. This is certainly one of them.
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