Tuk Smith & The Restless Hearts
Ballad Of A Misspent Youth MRG
Former Biters frontman returns with sparkling sort-of-solo debut album.
It’s a small miracle that Ballad Of A Misspent Youth has come into the world. After Tuk Smith’s previous band, Atlanta punk’n’roll heroes Biters, fizzled out in 2019, worn down by the apathy of a public oblivious to their brilliance, Smith recorded an album for US label Better Noise, home of Mötley Crüe and The Hu, only to have it shelved mid-pandemic due to behind-the-scenes shenanigans. No one would have blamed him if he’d walked away from the whole shit-show. But he didn’t, and thank the gods of rock’n’roll for that.
Short, sweet and crammed with maximum tuneage, Ballad Of A Misspent Youth is a love letter to the intoxicating power of music. The lack of success Smith achieved with Biters is in inverse proportion to the undiluted greatness of his songwriting. The gleaming melodies of the title track and Shadows On The Street feel like they’ve been unearthed from some great lost album released some time between Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ first album and Cheap Trick’s In Color.
Smith is inis a glorious Thin Lizzy homage, relocating their freewheeling Celtic spirit to smalltown America and making the connection between Phil Lynott and Springsteen as kindred spirits separated by an ocean. Tellingly, the punk influences that were evident in Biters’ music have been dialled back.
