“Everybody Needs a Dog” is a new EP release by Spyderhuff, an excellent Detroit-based band. It’s their fifth extended play release and a second piece of work in 2024, arriving after “Gonna Build Me A Hot Rod,” another marvelous EP released earlier this year that you should immediately check out. Lyrically, this material explores different themes, including love, friendships, relationships, emotions, moods, situations, and circumstances. For example, “Come Take The Bones” talks about getting old and being exhausted while “Drag & Drop” criticizes social media angst. The title track deals with relationships and the healing nature of a loyal dog while, in the meantime, “Future” examines what the future might hold. These are highly relatable themes, so there are no doubts that the “Everybody Needs a Dog” EP will resonate with the broader auditorium. Soundwise, the band combined many different but complementary music genres to illustrate such rich and luxurious sonic imagery. Perhaps blues rock comes to mind first, but you’ll unquestionably notice many other sonic ingredients borrowed from traditional blues, hard rock, classic rock, and alternative rock. Spyderhuff uses all these elements as more than necessary enhancements, accentuations, decorations, and other details to uplift this material on an entirely new level while the band remains loyal to the primary sonic direction. Therefore, these experimentations with many different but complementary styles resulted in a marvelous release that will not only resonate with blues rock fans but with anyone even remotely interested in cleverly assembled and flawlessly performed rock music.
As soon as you press play, you’ll notice that these folks are not joking around with their music. Each composition arrives with a perfect structure adorned with intricate segments, brilliant ideas, and outstanding musicianship. Spyderhuff thoroughly planned everything, so you’ll notice nothing but a quality shining from this band. The guitars reign supreme from scratch to finish. You’ll notice how the interplay between rhythm and lead guitar articulate harmoniously, creating an adequate backdrop for all the vocals to shine upon. There are tastefully assembled and flawlessly performed riffs and chord progressions resonating on one side while the other experiments with various leads, themes, melodies, harmonies, and other sonic acrobatics. Spyderhuff not only experiment with their sound but also with the amount of distortion used in the guitar layers. Therefore, you’ll notice how the different guitar channels carry different amounts of distortion. From semi-distorted to generously fuzzy guitar works, this band showcases impressive versatility, making this marvelous music journey even more enjoyable. They continuously improvise, creating a nearly jazzy or prog-rock atmosphere at some points. Each composition has these moments, but “Come Take The Bones” perfectly exemplifies the experimental nature of this band. You’ll also notice some synth accentuations/improvisation and an adorable saxophone solo, further enhancing the listening experience.
“Drag & Drop” brings more blues rock to the table, with an energetic rhythmic pattern propelling all other instrumentations to new heights. This particular track carries a mid-eighties/early eighties blues rock atmosphere with all those marvelous riffs heavily drenched in reverb and soulful guitar solos pervading from all possible sides. In the meantime, the intricate, audible, warm-sounding low-ends lurk beneath all those guitar works, providing more than necessary heaviness, clarity, and depth while binding all those orchestrations together. The exceptional drumming keeps everything in line while dictating groove and pace with well-accentuated, tastefully assembled, and flawlessly performed beats, breaks, and fills. It would be a shame not to mention a soulful, passionate, confident, powerful vocal performance that decorates everything Spyderhuff intended to do with their music. The impressive vocal range seamlessly glides over low, mid, and high notes, emphasizing all those segments from scratch to finish. It’s also nearly mindblowing how the vocals and guitar pair together harmoniously, making this track such an outstanding listening experience worth revisiting over and over again.
The title track dives deep into the fundamentals of blues music, with its calm, soothing, relaxing, ethereal yet intense ambiance in some ways, tickling all the senses and listening apparatus. The percussions match those Southern rock chord progressions flawlessly, spicing things up and elevating everything on an entirely new level. You’ll notice how these guitars work also perfectly match another impressive vocal performance, elevated with outstanding back vocals and singalongs. The comprehensive collection of guitar solos, harmonies, melodies, and themes spices things up while the keys and basslines give more complexity to an already intricate composition. Like in their previous tracks, Spyderhuff incorporated some of the finest rhythmic sequences adorned with detailed percussions. The collection of beats, fills, and accentuations makes this track so catchy, that it will immediately become your go-to track whenever you need some perfect blues rock music. “Future” serves as a perfect closing track of this epic extended play release. It continuously levitates between blues and progressive rock, with its hypnotic vocal arrangements, complex guitar works, magnificent synths, intricate basslines, delicate percussions, and mindblowing drumming. Spyderhuff continuously levitates between the intricacy of progressive music and soulful blues-rock sonic maneuvers, demonstrating that these music genres can still sound fresh, unique, and innovative. It’s a perfect closing track that forces you to spin “Everybody Needs a Dog” all over again.
These experienced musicians created another masterpiece. “Everybody Needs a Dog” is one of those releases where experience, knowledge, skills, and talent collide harmoniously, delivering four exceptional tracks charged with soul, emotion, and power. Each song grabs you by the collar and refuses to let go long after this material ends. Therefore, you should place this marvelous EP on your music radar if you’re looking for cleverly assembled and flawlessly performed blues rock music. “Everybody Needs a Dog” is available on all streaming platforms. Don’t miss it!
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