Verni - Dreadful Company

Angry Metal Guy

Few bands in the thrash business have remained as enjoyable through their dips and resurgences as New Jersey’s very own gutter brigade Overkill. And since The Lubricunts dissolved to form that unsung thrash titan, bottom-rumbler D.D. Verni has been pluckin’ low and clangy under scooped riffs and snarled anthems for the better part of forty-four years, equally as integral to the Overkill grime as Bobby Blitz’s trash-tongued antics. So it’s understandable then that Verni’s output, being born of a mind—D.D. Verni performs everything here—that has reveled in riffs with a sticky crunch, has aimed to take a step back to roots, back to rock ‘n’ roll. After all, nothing says “hello from the gutter” like a cranked amp shootin’ a power chord across the airwaves.

That louder-than-loud and windows-down philosophy builds the core, the cover, and crannies of what Verni offers with Dreadful Company. The second in line of Verni’s solo works, this newest sound collection lands on the heels on 2018’s Barricade, which saw thick-rhythm guitar music in the vein Queens of the Stone Age or the scuzzy drawl of Black Label Society. But it seems that between then and Dreadful Company, Verni himself decided that he needed to turn the dial back further to the sound of The Ramones-era punk, letting just a few chords and song-title choruses do the heavy lifting (almost every song up to “Thanks for the Memories”). Heck, with the spell-out sneer of “L-U-N-K-H-E-A-D, Lunkhead! Lunkhead!” (“Lunkhead”), Verni threatens to be damn near fun and wholesome—a far cry from the dirt and spit image of his younger days—at least until he lets the Jersey out and turns call to “stupid fuck” instead of “lunkhead.”

Dreadful Company by Verni

Of course, it’s natural for artists to evolve and work in different lanes, so all of these changes aren’t wholly bothersome, not so much as Verni’s inability to cobble together a diverse assortment of tunes, anyway. If it weren’t for those clearly audible title shouts, it’d be difficult to place where you are in the first twenty minutes through which Verni with bouncing yet predictable fervor. And yes, that is twenty minutes to prowl through five songs, which in this punk-worship lane is far too long. The tempo runs just a bit under what a snappy brawl might entail. The choruses follow cut-and-paste melodies between each other, reducing the impact of catchy phrases like “The whore, the whore, the whore with see-through shooooes” and “Thanks for the memories, thanks for the memoriiiies” (“The Whore with the See-Thru Shoes,” “Thanks for the Memories”). And Verni also borrows passages from classic works (“Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” in “Thanks…,” “Pachelbel’s Canon” in “Call of the Highway”), even tossing in a pointless cover of Bachman–Turner Overdrive’s “Takin’ Care of Business,” to no impact other than added time.

At least Verni knows how to keep performances tight and professional, though that’s the least you’d expect of someone who has been at it this long. Yet in this niche of old-timey worship in which Dreadful Company lives, the lack of warmth and depth in the tones and production rings frustrating. In particular, a majority of songs present up-front with loud guitars, which isn’t a problem on its own. But with the lack in character in its tone, this wall of sound blends into the same mass every time its present, despite the trademark bass underpinning. On “Wild Horses” Verni takes a breather on this style to work in a classic blues rock lick that opens space tasteful rhythmic exploration and vocal harmonization—Verni’s voice could use a bit more edge all-around, but it’s pleasant enough, especially when layered.

No one expected Verni to reinvent the wheel, but when the promise is rock, I at least want to roll. With a name as known as Overkill, it’s easy to form expectations, though. However, even when removed of that pedigree, Verni’s mission doesn’t change: to deliver unbranded rock ‘n’ roll with a blush of toughness and grit enough to pare down the most glaring of snags. Faceless, formulaic, and frustrating, Dreadful Company plates a forty-five-minute experience that sums to far less than what peak radio rock would offer. And in a world where rock as a simple format must go against annals that run deep and wide with acclaim, Dreadful Company isn’t enough to achieve any kind of repeated airplay.

Rating: 1.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: M-Theory Audio | Bandcamp
Websites: facebook.com/ddverni | ddverni.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: July 26th, 2024

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